Health Stories
Why did we decide to create Health Stories?
Background
Many people have interesting stories that could easily be used to educate and motivate others about health related experiences. However there is currently no accepted way to collect and share these stories. Our app would meet this purpose in addition to motivating those who may not have realized that their story could be used to educate others.
Availability of Interesting Stories
Working in the Healthcare field, members of the Health Stories team have seen firsthand the willingness of some of those undergoing medical treatment to share their stories. Entering the right search terms on Google or Youtube brings up countless resources from patients willing to share their experiences with others. Our goal is to collect these type of stories from patients, verify medical accuracy and aggregate them in one place. People who are interested in sharing their story, but do not have the inclination or the expertise required to make a Youtube video or a blog post will be empowered to share by the ease with which they can release their story to many readers using our app.
Correlation Between Social Media and Health
An important correlation is the relationship between a person's social media activity and their health. Studies have been conducted which demonstrate and outline this relationship and can predict incidence of health problems such as heart disease solely based on a persons social media activity. For example, data regarding twitter activity and the location from where people tweeted demonstrated that heart disease is more common in areas in which harsh language is more frequently used. The fact that areas in which certain health problems are more likely can be predicted even before people provide any personal information provides a key opportunity for our app. Once we have collected sufficient stories and have created content based on these stories, we can use social media data to target and distribute these stories in the locations where they are most needed. It is fitting that the necessary data comes from social media since this is also where we will mainly distribute content, whether through our users sharing stories they find interesting with their own social media following or through content we create from their stories.
For examples of some of the content we have created from people's stories, visit the "Examples" page.