Improving health information access through social networking

Sustaining user participation is a challenge for even the most popular web sites. In this work we report on an effort to increase exposure to, and interaction with, a repository of health based information by coupling the repository with a social networking application. We hypothesize that we can sustain user interaction with a repository and increase nutrition knowledge through content browsing by reporting on the browsing actions of other users in a Social Networking System´s activity feeds. We report on the findings of a live user study, which showed that coupling health content with a social networking system successfully increased content browsing and that highly engaged users are seen to have an altered attitude toward control over their health.