Using social media to inform public health and policy: promises and pitfalls

Join the UNC School of Media and Journalism for a seminar titled “Using social media to inform public health and policy: promises and pitfalls.” The seminar will be led by Jon-Patrick Allem, PhD, assistant professor of Research Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Jon-Patrick Allem, PhD, is an assistant professor of research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Dr. Allem’s work focuses on developing cutting-edge methodologies to improve population health surveillance and policy. Dr. Allem’s multidisciplinary expertise in behavioral science, preventive medicine and data science has led to data-driven public health insights featured in prominent media and scholarly outlets such U.S News & World Report, CNN, and the American Journal of Public Health. Using data from online platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Google Web Search, Dr. Allem’s research includes studies on the effectiveness of mass media campaigns in the U.S. and Latin America, population mental health in the U.S. and Australia, public interest in climate change in the U.S., use and appeal of hookah, e-cigarettes, and flavored cigars in the U.S., HIV education in the U.S., and documented cases of hazardous driving in the U.S. His current projects are focused on understanding user experience with emerging tobacco products, the impact of product placement in music videos on product appeal, and the influences of automated social media accounts (social bots) on health-related attitudes and behaviors.