# Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS)

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2021 · $572,844

## Abstract

Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS)
The prevalence of dementia is higher in Hispanics and Blacks than non-Hispanic Whites. Dementia caregivers
often experience social isolation and loneliness as well decreased health status and lower quality of life. Social
support interventions have been demonstrated to help mitigate these issues. The expansion of social media
use among Hispanics and Blacks, particularly Twitter – a short message service – offers great promise for
improving social support for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers. In addition, the availability of large
volumes of Tweets and associated metadata make it possible to apply innovative data science methods to
characterize engagement in a social support intervention and to assess its influence over time. However,
analytic frameworks for analyzing Tweet content and social network structures in Twitter communities are
relatively new and evolving rapidly, and there has been limited use of Twitter for intervention delivery. Through
federal funding, our research team has conducted substantial research on Hispanic dementia caregiving using
Twitter analytics to discover and visualize Tweet content and social network structures and is uniquely qualified
to develop, implement, and evaluate a Twitter-based social support intervention for Hispanic and Black
dementia caregivers. Informed by Social Exchange Theory, the specific aims of Tweet-SS are to: 1) analyze
Tweets specific to dementia caregiving in Blacks and compare Tweet content and social network structures
with our prior findings in Hispanics; 2) operationalize a Twitter-based intervention to enhance the social support
for Hispanic and Black dementia caregivers; and 3) evaluate the impact of the Twitter-based intervention on
Tweet content and social network structures of Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks. We will test
two hypotheses: (a) There will be significant pre/post-intervention differences in Tweet content and macro-,
meso-, and micro-level network structures for Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks, and (b) There
will be no significant differences in level of engagement with the Twitter-based intervention, Tweet content, and
social network structures between Hispanic and Black dementia caregiver networks. The intervention
comprises daily posting of social support (informational, instrumental, emotional, appraisal) Tweets with
embedded web-based information such as videos tailored to Black and Hispanic dementia caregivers,
interactions with the caregiver networks by the bilingual project Tweeter, and a monthly Twitter chat hosted by
the research team. We will use a quasi-experimental non-equivalent 2-group design with pre- and post-
intervention measures to characterize dementia caregiver engagement with the Twitter-based social support
intervention and examine its influence on Tweets content and network structures. Tweet-SS is responsive to
the Na...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10216164
- **Project number:** 5R01AG060929-03
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Sunmoo Yoon
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $572,844
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-15 → 2024-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10216164

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10216164, Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS) (5R01AG060929-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10216164. Licensed CC0.

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