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As Americans await their COVID-19 shot, a new study of a different vaccine shows the power of Facebook posts in fueling “anti-vax” resistance to immunization. The study included more than 10 years of public Facebook posts on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. It found that nearly 40% of 6,500 HPV vaccine-related posts from 2006 to 2016 amplified a perceived risk. The data suggest the posts had momentum over time. “We should not assume that only the disease is perceived as a risk, but when research supports it, that medical treatments and interventions might unfortunately also be perceived as risks,” said Monique Luisi, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, in Columbia. “It’s more likely that people are going to see things on social media, particularly on Facebook, that are not only negative about the HPV vaccine, but will also suggest the HPV vaccine could be harmful. It amplifies the fear that people may have about the vaccine, and we see that posts that amplify fear are more likely to trend than those that don’t,” she said in a school news release Luisi said the findings could shed light on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and distribution. During the rollout, people will likely see a lot of negative information and that negative information will be what trends on social media, she said. “If… read on > read on >

Tinder, Grindr and other dating apps have a reputation for encouraging casual hookups, but a new study suggests app users may be looking for — and finding — love in all the right places after all. Unlike more traditional dating sites such as Match.com and EHarmony, these apps are largely based on rating photos. You swipe right if you like what you see, or left if you don’t. It’s that simple, which is why many felt they would foster shallow relationships. That wasn’t the case for Los Angeles publicist Anthoni Allen-Zouhry, who swiped right when she first saw her now husband’s photo on Tinder. They have now been married for close to two years and are expecting their first child. “Love found me,” she said. “I was looking for a relationship, but I was also just casually dating and not putting too much pressure on myself. It took a few months before we actually got serious.” And there are many couples just like Allen-Zouhry and her husband, according to a study published recently in the journal PLOS ONE. Study author Gina Potarca, a researcher at the Institute of Demography and Socioeconomics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, examined data from a 2018 family survey by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office to find out more about relationships formed online and offline. The survey included more… read on > read on >

One in four doctors has been personally attacked or sexually harassed on social media, a new study finds. Women are more likely to be sexually harassed, while both men and women are attacked based on religion, race or medical recommendations, researchers say. Doctors received negative reviews, coordinated harassment, threats at work, public exposure of their personal information and threats of rape and death. Distressingly, this was reported before the 2020 pandemic. The survey of 464 U.S. physicians was conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak and highlight the intensity of online harassment of doctors. The situation has only gotten worse since the spring, the authors noted. “If anything, our data is likely an underestimate of the true extent of attacks and harassment post-pandemic since so many doctors started to advocate for public health measures during the pandemic and have been met with an increasingly polarized populace emboldened by leadership that devalues science and fact,” said senior author Dr. Vineet Arora, assistant dean for scholarship and discovery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. The study also reported that 1 in 6 women doctors said they had been sexually harassed on social media. Study co-author Tricia Pendergrast, a second-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, described the findings as worrisome. “We worry this emotionally distressing environment will drive women physicians off… read on > read on >

Telemedicine rapidly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic as people turned to their phones and computers rather than leave their homes for health care. But some groups of people were left behind in the telemedicine boom, a new study reports. Middle-aged and older folks are much less likely to complete their scheduled telemedicine visits, as well as Medicaid recipients and those whose first language is not English, the researchers said. Many groups are also unable to take part in video visits, including middle-aged folks and seniors, women, Black and Hispanic people, and those with a lower household income, according to the study authors. The pandemic has revealed a “digital divide” in telemedicine care, with some people unable to take full advantage of the service because they either lack access to the technology or find it too daunting, said lead researcher Dr. Srinath Adusumalli. He’s a cardiologist and assistant professor of clinical medicine with the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. “Lots of the care we’ve historically delivered in person can be done via telemedicine, and therefore I do think telemedicine is here to stay,” Adusumalli said. “Our goal now is to start refining that process.” For this study, Adusumalli and his colleagues surveyed records for nearly 150,000 patients who scheduled telemedicine visits with Penn Medicine between mid-March and mid-May, 2020, at the height of… read on > read on >