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

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2022 · $168,859

## Abstract

Administrative Supplement for Ethical Development and Use of AI/ML
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. 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. Informed by Social Exchange
Theory, the goal of “Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers”
(Tweet-S2) is to advance the science of social support for Hispanics and Black dementia caregivers using
Twitter. 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. The aims of the parent award Tweet-S2 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. This
Supplement request in response to NOT-OD-22-065 expands the activities of Aims 1, 2 and 3 of the TweetS2
through the ethical use of our first version Black Tweet detection algorithm developed in Aim 1 to inform the
design of culturally sensitive intervention in Aim 2 and recruitment process in Aim 3. The goal of the
Supplement is to examine the risks, benefits, and ethical dilemmas inherent to the use of the “Black
Twitter”/Black discourse detection algorithm that can occur at all layers of the socio-ecological model to inform
the best practices and guidelines for ethical use of this AI/ML algorithm and any related approach developed
and applied via similar methods. Using a mixed-methods approach, we will conduct in-depth interviews and an
online survey with stakeholders, ethicists, and the public to achieve the goal. The contribution of the proposed
study will be to develop an ecological approach to the ethical use of minority detection algorithms in social
media in the context of the multidimensional dilemmas that arise when creating interventions to address
disparities in dementia caregiving. These find...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10599616
- **Project number:** 3R01AG060929-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Sunmoo Yoon
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $168,859
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-07-15 → 2024-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10599616

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10599616, Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers (Tweet-SS) (3R01AG060929-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-29 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10599616. Licensed CC0.

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