Article

COVID-19 and Mental Health/Substance Use Disorders on Reddit: A Longitudinal Study

Authors:

Amanuel Alambo,

Swati Padhee,

Tanvi Banerjee,

Krishnaprasad ThirunarayanAuthors Info & Claims

Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges: Virtual Event, January 10–15, 2021, Proceedings, Part II

Pages 20 - 27

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68790-8_2

Published: 10 January 2021 Publication History

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has adversely and disproportionately impacted people suffering from mental health issues and substance use problems. This has been exacerbated by social isolation during the pandemic and the social stigma associated with mental health and substance use disorders, making people reluctant to share their struggles and seek help. Due to the anonymity and privacy they provide, social media emerged as a convenient medium for people to share their experiences about their day to day struggles. Reddit is a well-recognized social media platform that provides focused and structured forums called subreddits, that users subscribe to and discuss their experiences with others. Temporal assessment of the topical correlation between social media postings about mental health/substance use and postings about Coronavirus is crucial to better understand public sentiment on the pandemic and its evolving impact, especially related to vulnerable populations. In this study, we conduct a longitudinal topical analysis of postings between subreddits r/depression, r/Anxiety, r/SuicideWatch, and r/Coronavirus, and postings between subreddits r/opiates, r/OpiatesRecovery, r/addiction, and r/Coronavirus from January 2020–October 2020. Our results show a high topical correlation between postings in r/depression and r/Coronavirus in September 2020. Further, the topical correlation between postings on substance use disorders and Coronavirus fluctuates, showing the highest correlation in August 2020. By monitoring these trends from platforms such as Reddit, epidemiologists, and mental health professionals can gain insights into the challenges faced by communities for targeted interventions.

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Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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Published In

Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges: Virtual Event, January 10–15, 2021, Proceedings, Part II

Jan 2021

766 pages

ISBN:978-3-030-68789-2

DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-68790-8

Editors:
Alberto Del Bimbo
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, University of Firenze, Firenze, Italy
,
Rita Cucchiara
Dipartimento di Ingegneria “Enzo Ferrari”, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
,
Stan Sclaroff
Department of Computer Science, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
,
Giovanni Maria Farinella
Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
,
Tao Mei
Cloud & AI, JD.COM, Beijing, China
,
Marco Bertini
Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Universita di Firenze, Firenze, Italy
,
Hugo Jair Escalante
Computational Sciences Department, National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE), Tonantzintla, Puebla, Mexico
,
Roberto Vezzani
Dipartimento di Ingegneria “Enzo Ferrari”, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 10 January 2021

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