Temporal Community Structure Patterns in Diabetes Social Networks

The growing amount of data in healthcare social media requires innovative new analysis methods, which are elementary to exploration of relationship dynamics; community formation, sustenance and dissolution, in a bid to understand the new roles social media play in healthcare. In this work we use network analysis to explore the temporal nature of two large diabetes social networks, with a view to enhancing our knowledge of the development of sub-community structures and cohesion factors. Current results reveal how diabetes online communities are very dynamic, suggesting diabetes patients are usually actively engaged for periods of less than a year, typically immediately following diagnosis. The presented empirical evidence inform future online intervention strategies for promoting health behavior and lifestyle changes among people with diabetes.