Study: Consumers turning to social media, internet searches for medical diagnoses

Becker's Healthcare November 6, 2019
Jackie Drees

Crowd-diagnosis, or when a person uses social media to seek out a medical diagnosis, is a phenomenon increasingly spreading among the public, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, University of California San Diego researchers analyzed posts about sexually transmitted diseases on Reddit, a social media website organized into communities focused on specific topics.

STDs are at an all-time high, according to the Centers for Disease Control. While clinical visits for STDs have increased, STD clinics should statistically be seeing more patients than what is currently noted, said study co-author Davey Smith, chief of infectious diseases and global health at UC San Diego, according to the news release.

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