Faculty Focus: Dr. Jiahe (Carrie) Song

WMU professor’s research shows social connection leads to success in health goals 

Staying on top of our health can be a daunting task. Whether it’s setting health goals, managing a chronic condition or trying to wade through the conflicting advice, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details, and we often find ourselves falling short or giving up.

But what if you could harness the power of social media platforms to help you reach your goals? Dr. Jiahe (Carrie) Song, associate professor of business information systems at Western Michigan University, has recently published research that delves into this question, with interesting applications for both consumers and health care providers.

Song explains what prompted her to pursue this research. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronic diseases affect 60% of the American population and are leading drivers of annual health care costs. As social media has evolved, the use of online health communities is democratizing self-care goal management that used to be guided by health care professionals. The current reality is that we can easily access self-care technology and track our health, but many of us often miss out on online social interaction when striving to achieve a health milestone.”

Song and her research partner compiled a unique data set from a leading online health community in the U.S. to uncover the effect of online self-regulation and social support on goal performance for chronic disease self-care.

“Although the use of online health communities for health goal management has become ubiquitous, success stories about a person being able to attain health goals due to such communities are not heard frequently,” says Song. “This is because the mechanisms through which patients may generate better goal performance in these communities are still largely unknown.”

Key findings of the study

• Emotional support gathered from an online health community can motivate patients with physical health goals to be more active in the community.
• Receiving informational support can help users generate greater progress and be more active in the online community.
• When patients conduct more online self-reflection about their health practices, they can generate greater progress on their goals.
• It is important for the online health community to actively monitor forums; distracting information leads to decreased goal updates and hampers progress.
• Online health communities can be beneficial in helping patients meet health goals, leading to long-lasting health and lower health care costs.