↓ Skip to main content

Analyzing hidden populations online: topic, emotion, and social network of HIV-related users in the largest Chinese online community

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, January 2018
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

Mentioned by

twitter
5 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
35 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
75 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Analyzing hidden populations online: topic, emotion, and social network of HIV-related users in the largest Chinese online community
Published in
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, January 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12911-017-0579-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Chuchu Liu, Xin Lu

Abstract

Traditional survey methods are limited in the study of hidden populations due to the hard to access properties, including lack of a sampling frame, sensitivity issue, reporting error, small sample size, etc. The rapid increase of online communities, of which members interact with others via the Internet, have generated large amounts of data, offering new opportunities for understanding hidden populations with unprecedented sample sizes and richness of information. In this study, we try to understand the multidimensional characteristics of a hidden population by analyzing the massive data generated in the online community. By elaborately designing crawlers, we retrieved a complete dataset from the "HIV bar," the largest bar related to HIV on the Baidu Tieba platform, for all records from January 2005 to August 2016. Through natural language processing and social network analysis, we explored the psychology, behavior and demand of online HIV population and examined the network community structure. In HIV communities, the average topic similarity among members is positively correlated to network efficiency (r = 0.70, p < 0.001), indicating that the closer the social distance between members of the community, the more similar their topics. The proportion of negative users in each community is around 60%, weakly correlated with community size (r = 0.25, p = 0.002). It is found that users suspecting initial HIV infection or first in contact with high-risk behaviors tend to seek help and advice on the social networking platform, rather than immediately going to a hospital for blood tests. Online communities have generated copious amounts of data offering new opportunities for understanding hidden populations with unprecedented sample sizes and richness of information. It is recommended that support through online services for HIV/AIDS consultation and diagnosis be improved to avoid privacy concerns and social discrimination in China.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 75 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 75 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 10 13%
Researcher 8 11%
Student > Ph. D. Student 8 11%
Student > Bachelor 8 11%
Other 4 5%
Other 13 17%
Unknown 24 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Computer Science 8 11%
Nursing and Health Professions 6 8%
Psychology 6 8%
Social Sciences 6 8%
Medicine and Dentistry 5 7%
Other 16 21%
Unknown 28 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 February 2018.
All research outputs
#13,577,300
of 23,015,156 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
#996
of 2,008 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#220,084
of 441,866 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making
#20
of 30 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,015,156 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 39th percentile – i.e., 39% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,008 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.9. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 441,866 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 48th percentile – i.e., 48% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 30 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 30th percentile – i.e., 30% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.