Publications

Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks as the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States (U.S.). Our study aims to analyze CRC mortality patterns in the U.S., focusing on gender and age groups from 1999 to 2022. We analyzed Age-Adjusted Mortality Rates (AAMRs) for CRC-related deaths using the CDC Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) database and assessed differences between age and sex. CRC-related mortality decreased significantly from 1999 to 2011 (−2.81% APC) and from 2011 to 2020 (−1.95% APC) but a not significant uptrend from 2020 to 2022 (2% APC). Males experienced a more significant decrease. Among age groups, crude mortality decreased until 2020, except in age group 45–54, which showed an annual increase in mortality of 0.9% from 2004 to 2022. Furthermore, individuals aged 75–84 and 85+ saw a nonsignificant annual increase of 1.8% and 4.5% from 2020 to 2022, respectively. Our study highlights a significant decline in age and gender-specific CRC-related mortality from 1999 to 2020. However, the worrisome uptrend observed in the younger age group of 45–54 emphasizes the importance of implementing targeted public health measures and evidence-based interventions.

Loneliness is an increasingly prevalent condition with many adverse effects on health and quality of life. Accordingly, there is a growing interest in developing automated or low-cost methods for triaging and supporting individuals encountering psychosocial distress. This study marks an early attempt at building predictive models to detect loneliness automatically using the digital traces of individuals’ online behavior (Google search and YouTube consumption). Based on a longitudinal study with 92 adult participants for eight weeks in 2021, we find that users’ online behavior can help create automated classification tools for loneliness with high accuracy. Furthermore, we observed behavioral differences in digital traces across platforms. The “not lonely” participants had higher aggregated YouTube activity and lower aggregated Google search activity than “lonely” participants. Our results indicate the need for a further platform-aware exploration of technology use for studies interested in developing automated assessment tools for psychological well-being.

Multiple symptom tracking applications (apps) were created during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. While they provided crowdsourced information about the state of the pandemic in a scalable manner, they also posed significant privacy risks for individuals. The present study investigates the interplay between individual privacy attitudes and the adoption of symptom tracking apps. Using the communication privacy theory as a framework, it studies how users’ privacy attitudes changed during the public health emergency compared to the pre-COVID times. Based on focus-group interviews (N = 21), this paper reports significant changes in users’ privacy attitudes toward such apps. Research participants shared various reasons for both increased acceptability (e.g., disease uncertainty, public good) and decreased acceptability (e.g., reduced utility due to changed lifestyle) during COVID. The results of this study can assist health informatics researchers and policy designers in creating more socially acceptable health apps in the future.

The proliferation of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have revolutionized the way people communicate, consume, and share information. As a result, social media addiction, a type of behavioral addiction related to the compulsive use of social media and associated with adverse outcomes, has been discussed by scholars and practitioners alike. Despite the abundance of research published on social media addiction, this literature is fragmented, and there is no synthesis of the drivers and outcomes of this behavior. In this study, we use the cognitive-behavioral model of pathological use and conduct a systematic review of social media addiction literature from 2008-2019. Based on the review of 132 papers, we propose a framework that integrates prior findings. Our review reveals several avenues for future research on this increasingly prominent research topic.

As technology continues to grow and advance at a rapid rate, most producers and companies are neglecting a rather large demographic: the elderly. The elderly, who are accustomed to more traditional means of communication utilizing pencil and paper, are having difficulty keeping in stride at the same rate as technology is pacing itself in the modern era. Cybersecurity, one of the most vital aspects of technology, is an area in cyberspace where senior citizens are struggling to adjust. Although they understand the necessity of having passwords to keep their private information secure, they often grow frustrated with remembering their passwords, which may vary from website to website and are often strenuous to remember due to regulatory password procedures. The objective of this project is to investigate how this issue can be tackled in a simple manner using biometrics.