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Social Media in Health Research: An Example from Childcare Provider Message Boards

Social media sites, such as message boards and blogs, provide innovative data sources for researchers as these sites feature people sharing advice and discussing issues in a public arena. Research has found the online context can encourage people to reveal more information than do such traditional methods as interviews or focus groups. However, despite the important role the Internet plays as a medium for obtaining and discussing health information, little research has examined how people discuss children's health on social media sites. The present exploratory study begins to fill the gap in this research by comparing how childcare providers discuss their nutritional attitudes and behaviours on two online childcare provider message boards to how providers discuss these topics in interviews. Following further refinement, future research and practice in children's behaviour development should benefit from this new approach to collecting data.