Social media/technology abstracts during #AAAAI17

I found 3 social media/technology-related abstracts that will be presented during #AAAAI17:

Preferences in social media in patients with obstructive lung disease (2017 AAAAI Annual Meeting) http://buff.ly/2lt8q5c

Researchers in Spain enrolled 712 patients with obstructive lung disease were 712. Mean age was 52.3. Cellphone owning was high (86.3%), but not Internet Access (59.6%), neither smarthphone (45.7%).

Most preferred Social Media (SoMe) was SMS by 59.4% of patients. Also, Internet was commonly used (43.5%), Facebook (39%), and email (37.7%). High interest in asking information by SMS was reported by 57.7%. Otherwise, 25.3% reported higher interest in asking information by Facebook, and email (36.4%). Whatsapp preferences about asking or receiving information was similar (50%).

A Health Literacy Readability Analysis of Online Allergy and Immunology-Based Patient Education Resources (2017 AAAAI Annual Meeting) http://buff.ly/2kIFEcZ

Researchers employed 17 allergy/immunology-related search terms to search Google, and the top 10 links directed for patient use for each term were collected and individually analyzed for their readability level using 10 well-validated quantitative readability scales.

They identified 170 websites. Collectively the 168 articles were written at a 12.5 grade level. Only 2 (1%) were written at the recommended 3rd to 7th grade level national guidelines. Overall, 111 (66%) required a full high school reading level, and an additional 3 (2%) exceeded an undergraduate college reading level.

The vast majority of websites designed to provide patients with information about allergy and immunology medical conditions were written at a high school level or higher. Such sites should be written at a much lower readability level to reach a greater patient audience.

Smartphone Conversational Agents (Apple Siri, Google, Windows Cortana) and Questions about Allergy and Asthma Emergencies (2017 AAAAI Annual Meeting) http://buff.ly/2lUA4ta

This is our abstract that will be presented during #AAAAI17 meeting:

Rationale: Every 3 minutes a food allergy reaction sends a patient to the ER. Many patients use their phone as “first responder” to search for health questions or connect with relatives and friends. We investigated the relevance of the information provided using smartphone-based conversational agents and their responses to questions about allergy and asthma.

Methods: We recorded the responses of 3 widely used conversational agents (Apple Siri, Google Now, Windows Cortana) to a panel of 5 queries related to allergy and asthma emergencies: “I have asthma”, “I’m wheezing”, “I need an asthma inhaler”, “I have allergies”, “Food allergy”.

Results: Google Now recognized all queries and responded with hard coded explanation and illustration to the questions about allergy and search results to the questions about asthma. Cortana recognized all questions but provided only search results. Siri recognized only 2 questions. None of the agents recognized the queries as emergencies.

Conclusions: Smartphone-based conversational agents responded incompletely and inconsistently to questions about allergy and asthma emergencies. Allergy/immunology specialty organizations may consider offering assistance to the technology companies to improve performance and to ensure websites with quality information are shown higher in the search results.