# Quantifying Treatment Help-Seeking Among Self-Identified Opioid Users on Social Media

> **NIH NIH K25** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · 2020 · $189,498

## Abstract

2/12/2019 ProjectSummary - Google Docs
Project Summary
I will leverage social media conversations, specifically Reddit, to examine treatment help-seeking at an
unprecedented scale, thereby collecting evidence “in the wild” as a new strategy to monitor and respond to the
opioid crisis through the following aims. Aim 1. Data Driven Characterization of Treatment Help-Seeking
Among Self-Identified Opioid Users: I will systematically identify Reddit posts about opioids, identify if the post
is help-seeking for treatment, and contextualize the content of help-seeking posts. Aim 2. Data Driven
Characterization of Lay Responses to Help-Seeking from Self-Identified Opioid Users: I aim to understand how
peers organically respond to help-seeking for treatment by building data-driven models to discern what
attributes of posts are predictive of receiving a response from a peer and to examine the typical content and
reciprocity of responses. Aim 3. Assess the Quality of Lay Responses to Help-Seeking from Self-Identified
Opioid Users: I aim to identify the types of treatment, treatment services, and treatment referral services that
are provided in the responses and assess the quality of lay responses to opioid treatment help-seeking.
Currently, little is known about how drug users engage social media to support or combat their addictions.
Reddit is the sixth most popular website in the US with many reporters noting that it may be the last lifeline for
opioid users. Yet, little has been done to tap this potential source for social media monitoring, especially given
the difficulty of finding self-identified opioid users who are already contemplating strategies to treat their
addiction. This study adds a new significant perspective to social media monitoring and will be among the first
in public health to consider social media conversation threads by assessing unique posts about opioid
help-seeking, the responses these posts get, and the quality of responses to addiction help-seeking, thereby
creating a knowledge base for public health leaders to respond. Success of these aims will generate a number
of future research directions that will support interventions that address the needs of self-identified opioid users
seeking help on Reddit. Moreover, within all three aims this study will bring significant methodological
advances to the study of social media around substance use with the aims relying heavily on automated
approaches and analysis first developed in the computational sciences engendering more data scientists to
join public health to create actionable knowledge.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z4XHd63xhPZT8OFf9bHQ2q6XHpYp_c4AbouAOtAC3SU/edit 1/1

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9872029
- **Project number:** 1K25DA049944-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Alicia Nobles
- **Activity code:** K25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $189,498
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-04-15 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9872029

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9872029, Quantifying Treatment Help-Seeking Among Self-Identified Opioid Users on Social Media (1K25DA049944-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9872029. Licensed CC0.

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