Online health-communities on bad habits for preventive care

Abstract

This paper presents the results from a study of people with established bad habits and their conversations together in online health-communities. Target groups of the study have been overweight people, smokers, and alcohol and drug abusers who want to change life-style. The conversation issues raised in the communities were categorized based on the type of content. Frequency of the different types of issues was stated, and differences as well as similarities between the communities were investigated. Finally, suggestions on how to help community members to further develop conversations for learning purposes were proposed. Such a new design could also help active members as well as lurkers to more easily browse the communities for a certain type of conversation. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.