{"id":1098,"date":"2015-07-23T14:48:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T14:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/sti\/?p=1098"},"modified":"2015-07-22T22:49:55","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T22:49:55","slug":"myth-or-reality-are-social-media-triggering-an-explosion-in-sexually-transmitted-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/sti\/2015\/07\/23\/myth-or-reality-are-social-media-triggering-an-explosion-in-sexually-transmitted-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Myth or reality? Are social media triggering an explosion in sexually transmitted infections?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the whole, where STIs are concerned, social media have tended to be considered as a potential force for the good in public health, offering a new resource for the management of HIV patients, or opportunities for disseminating health messages via peer education (Swanton & Mullan (STIs)<\/a>; Peer group education (STIs\/blog)<\/a>).\u00a0 Recently, however, there have been a number of studies that have drawn attention to the negative implications of social media.\u00a0 Last June a study by Beymer & Morisky (STIs)<\/a>, based on data on MSM attendees at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Centre,<\/em> concluded that, among the 7,000 participants, those who had used geo-sexual networking apps to meet up with a partner had greater odds for testing positive for gonorrhoea (OR 1.25<\/strong>) or chlamydia (OR 1.37<\/strong>) than those who employed in-person methods.<\/p>\n

Recently, this more negative side has been receiving ever more attention in the US, especially in connection with HIV transmission.\u00a0 A yet unpublished but widely publicized study, Agarwal and Greenwood<\/a> (A&G), investigates hospital attendances for asymptomatic HIV (including acute and silent phases of the infection)\u00a0 in Florida over the period 2002-2006 when the piece-meal introduction of the digital commerce platform, Craigslist, appears to have greatly facilitated on-line social transactions through its \u201ccasual encounters\u201d forum.\u00a0 It has also offered researchers the chance to record what they describe as a \u201cnatural experiment\u201d, as successive counties have experienced the effects of entry into the platform.\u00a0 A&G estimate the health \u201cpenalty\u201d of entry into Craigslist at a 13.5% increase in attributable HIV infections – equivalent in financial terms to an additional burden of $592 million on the State of Florida.\u00a0\u00a0 This finding has recently been cited in connection with the precipitous rise in STIs in Rhode Island recently reported in an official Rhode Island Goverment press release<\/a> and in the press coverage (Huffington Post<\/a>) \u2013 79% in syphilis; 30% in gonorrhoea; 33% in HIV over the year 2013-2014.<\/p>\n

But A&G are concerned with more than estimating the magnitude of the effect.\u00a0\u00a0 The recent paper also claims to be the first study to attempt to determine exactly where that penalty of increased HIV infection due to social networking is actually falling \u2013 a question that is evidently of great interest to public health specialists who need to be able to target their interventions.\u00a0 On the face of it, this is something of a puzzle.\u00a0 HIV appears to be most heavily concentrated amongst the very sectors of the population who are most digitally disadvantaged.\u00a0 So what could be going on?\u00a0 To answer this question, A&G seek to disaggregate the Craigslist effect by ethnicity, income-level (as determined by enrolment in Medicaid) and gender.\u00a0 What emerges from their analysis is that the effect of Craigslist entry is contained almost exclusively within the Afro-Caribbean (as opposed to Latino or \u201cCaucasian\u201d) population. \u00a0A&G seek to explain this apparently disproportionate penalty accruing to the digitally disadvantaged.\u00a0 They argue that the \u201cdigital divide\u201d is probably not \u201cbinary\u201d, but more like a continuum. \u00a0We should not, in other words, necessarily think of \u201cdigital disadvantage\u201d \u2013 at least for an important proportion of the disadvantaged \u2013 in terms of the total absence of access or skill.\u00a0 It is therefore conceivable that it should be associated with a negative effect, i.e. the increased HIV incidence following Craigslist entry.\u00a0 \u201cDigital disadvantage\u201d, they argue, is likely to be a matter of the limited capacity to utilize on-line resources for \u201cwelfare-enhancing activities\u201d rather than a total unavailability of those resources.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the whole, where STIs are concerned, social media have tended to be considered as a potential force for the good in public health, offering a new resource for the management of HIV patients, or opportunities for disseminating health messages via peer education (Swanton & Mullan (STIs); Peer group education (STIs\/blog)).\u00a0 Recently, however, there have […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2274,2790],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiv-epidemiology","category-role-of-it-systems"],"yoast_head":"\nMyth or reality? Are social media triggering an explosion in sexually transmitted infections? - Sexually Transmitted Infections<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/sti\/2015\/07\/23\/myth-or-reality-are-social-media-triggering-an-explosion-in-sexually-transmitted-infections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Myth or reality? 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