Social Networking and Your Health

In the last week I've read two different sources on social networking (AKA health 2.0). Together they beg the question: will your health improve if you use social networking to become part of a larger community?

What is social networking?

According to the Health 2.0 blog, it's "the use of social software and light-weight tools to promote collaboration between patients, their caregivers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders in health".

For me, this means sites like TuDiabetes.com, DiabetesDaily.com, and others. It also means using Twitter to keep in touch, or even sharing photographs (see Diabetes365) with friends who can help you maintain better health.

The first source was an article in Business Week magazine Health 2.0: Patients as Partners talks mostly about PatientsLikeMe and how members there are sharing details on their medical conditions to try and determine better ways of treating them. It points out

PatientsLikeMe and a proliferation of similar startups are building a new business predicated on the belief that the wisdom of crowds of patients will bring insights, solace, and most of all, power.

Power because, as it turns out, patients talking among themselves on a global scale with complete transparency produces all kinds of unexpected results. Drug side effects can be reported to regulators by the patients experiencing them, without waiting for the manufacturers to come forward. Pharmaceutical companies can use social networks to recruit subjects quickly for clinical trials, speeding up the pace of research. For that matter, patients can simply band together and run their own clinical trials, leaving drug companies and physicians out of the loop.

The other thing I read was a post on TuDiabetes.com that posed the questions

1. Do social networks bring about positive behavioral change?
2. Is there a role for insurance companies in this conversation, or is this level of mis-trust so high that they should just stay out?

My experience after many years with diabetes is that anytime several people get together to share experiences and frustrations we all benefit from it.

These may be small things, like suggestions for exercising while on insulin, or using new sites for placing an insulin pump infusion set, or testing blood sugar.

But engaging with others who are going through the same health challenges can produce much bigger results like: persuading Disney to pull an episode of Hannah Montana because of how it portrays life with diabetes; or changing laws to help protect the rights of those using insulin to drive or pilot planes.

What's your experience with social networking sites?

Have they helped you improve your diabetes control, or your quality of life with diabetes? Which sites have helped you the most? What is missing from these sites?

And if you have found some that work for you, do you think you'll continue to use them?

Labels: diabetes365, friendship, health2.0, insurance, tudiabetes

posted by Bernard @ 8:56 PM