All photos by Marco Sanchez from UCSF Documents and Media
On November 30, 2022, we gathered for the 7th annual PRISM Health Symposium. This year’s symposium was hosted at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. Over 60 attendees joined us throughout the day, representing a diverse group of academic researchers and learners.
PRISM founder and co-chair, Dr. Urmimala Sarkar, Professor at UCSF, began with a land acknowledgement to recognize and respect the Ramaytush Ohlone people as traditional stewards of the land that UCSF sits upon.
PRISM co-chair, Dr. Jon-Patrick Allem, Assistant Professor at USC, followed with a brief description with the symposium's backgrounds and goals.
Attendees engaged with each other throughout the event to learn from our speakers engaged in social media and health research.
Poster Session
The poster session began with opening remarks by one of our sponsors, Dr. Joshua Nadeau from Rogers Behavioral Health.
The poster session focused on research from trainees and junior faculty. These posters presented either research in progress or completed research. In total, we learned from 15 poster presentations. The full list of presenters can be found here.
Panel 1: International Perspectives on Social Media & Global Health
Dr. Alicia Hong, Professor at George Mason University, described her work in conducting a mHealth intervention, Run4Love, on a popular social media platform, WeChat. The intervention aimed to reduce stress and promote physical activity among people living with HIV and depression (PLWHD) in Guangzhou, China. The intervention showed significant improvements in depressive symptoms, reduced stress and stigma, improved quality of life, and positive coping.
Dr. Keshet Ronen, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, presented her work on the Vijana-SMART study, which leveraged existing WhatsApp groups and youth needs, to develop a standardized, moderated WhatsApp intervention that integrates peer and health care worker (HCW) support to improve engagement in care among youth living with HIV (YLWH) in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Ronen and the study team found that the intervention was feasible and acceptable.
Dr. Qinghua Yang, Assistant Professor at Texas Christian University, spoke about her research in understanding public health in China using social networking sites (SNSs). Dr. Yang has sought to understand the health information environment on SNSs. Specifically, Dr. Yang shared that SNSs are severely afflicted by misinformation.
Panel 2: Stakeholder Engagement
Dr. Ana Radovic, Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, spoke about bridging technology and mental health to address adolescent suicide.
Dr. Kofoworola Williams, Assistant Professor at Drexel University, described her work to design and develop a digital-/social media-based mental health intervention.
Content Moderation on Social Media Platforms
After lunch, we were brought back together to learn from Dr. Joseph B. Walther, Distinguished Professor in Communication at UC Santa Barbara.
Rapid Fire Session
Rapid-fire presentations focused on research from trainees and junior faculty. In total, we learned from 5 rapid-fire presentations. The full list of presenters can be found here.
Closing Remarks
Fred Dillon, Head of Advisory Services at Hopelab, delivered closing remarks.
PRISM 2022 Awards
Best Rapid-Fire Presentation by a non-trainee: Erin Vogel, PhD
Best Rapid-Fire Presentation by a trainee: Marco Zenone, MSc
Best Poster Presentation by a non-trainee: Alicia Hong, PhD
Best Poster Presentation by a trainee: Elyse Thulin, PhD
Thank You Sponsors
The PRISM Health Symposium would not be possible without our sponsors. A huge thank you to these organizations for their support!