Administrando la Comunicación de Riesgos en una Emergencia Sanitaria, “El caso de la erupción del Volcán Calbuco”, Chile 2015 = Managing the Risk Communication in a Health Emergency, "The case of the eruption of the Calbuco Volcano", Chile 2015

El siguiente trabajo presenta la estrategia comunicacional desarrollada por la institución Seremi de Salud, durante la emergencia sanitaria por la erupción del Volcán Calbuco (Región de Los Lagos, Chile) en abrildel 2015, para disminuir los riesgos en la salud de las personas y comunidades expuestas a la erupción.Se da cuenta de una estrategia preventiva e informativa a través de diversos materiales, incluyendo las redes sociales, además de la transparencia institucional en términos de información a la comunidad sobre calidad del aire, agua y ceniza. El análisis de las redes sociales institucionales (twitter) indica que los ejes discursivos sanitarios fueron adecuadamente apropiados y difundidos por la comunidad.Palabras clave: Salud pública; Comunicación de riesgos; Redes sociales en salud; Vigilancia ambiental; Vigilancia epidemiológica.AbstractThe following work presents the communicational strategy developed by the Health Seremi institution, during the health emergency due to the eruption of the Calbuco Volcano (Los Lagos Region, Chile) in April 2015, to diminish the risks of health for people and communities exposed to the eruption. A preventive and informative strategy was reported through various resources, including website social networks, as well as institutional transparency in terms of information towards the community regarding air quality, water and ash presence. The analysis of institutional social networks (twitter) indicates that the sanitary discursive cores were properly fitting and spread in this social network.Keywords: Public health; Risk communication; Health social network; Environmental monitoring; Epidemiological surveillance.

Measuring Relevant Information in Health Social Network Conversations and Clinical Diagnosis Cases

The Internet and social media is an enormous source of information. Health social networks and online collaborative environments enable users to create shared content that afterwards can be discussed. The aim of this paper is to present a novel methodology designed for quantifying relevant information provided by different participants in clinical online discussions. The main goal of the methodology is to facilitate the comparison of participant interactions in clinical conversations. A set of key indicators for different aspects of clinical conversations and specific clinical contributions within a discussion have been defined. Particularly, three new indicators have been proposed to make use of biomedical knowledge extraction based on standard terminologies and ontologies. These indicators allow measuring the relevance of information of each participant of the clinical conversation. Proposed indicators have been applied to one discussion extracted from PatientsLikeMe, as well as to two real clinical cases from the Sanar collaborative discussion system. Results obtained from indicators in the tested cases have been compared with clinical expert opinions to check indicators validity. The methodology has been successfully used for describing participant interactions in real clinical cases belonging to a collaborative clinical case discussion tool and from a conversation from a health social network. This work can be applied to assess collaborative diagnoses, discussions among patients, and the participation of students in clinical case discussions. It permits moderators and educators to obtain a quantitatively measure of the contribution of each participant.

Measuring Relevant Information in Health Social Network Conversations and Clinical Diagnosis Cases (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Internet and Social media is an enormous source of information. Health Social Networks and online collaborative environments enable users to create shared content that afterwards can be discussed. While social media discussions for health related matters constitute a potential source of knowledge, characterizing the relevance of participations from different users is a challenging task. OBJECTIVE The aim of this paper is to present a methodology designed for quantifying relevant information provided by different participants in clinical online discussions. METHODS A set of key indicators for different aspects of clinical conversations and specific clinical contributions within a discussion have been defined. These indicators make use of biomedical knowledge extraction based on standard terminologies and ontologies. These indicators allow measuring the relevance of information of each participant of the clinical conversation. RESULTS Proposed indicators have been applied to two discussions extracted from PatientsLikeMe, as well as to two real clinical cases from the Sanar collaborative discussion system. Results obtained from indicators in the tested cases have been compared with clinical expert opinions to check indicators validity. CONCLUSIONS The methodology has been successfully used for describing participant interactions in real clinical cases belonging to a collaborative clinical case discussion tool and from a conversation from a Health Social Network.