Elizabeth Glowacki, Postdoc in the Department of Communication Studies, recently authored a study, published in Substance Abuse, about addiction concerns on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the recent periods of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, individuals managing or recovering from addiction turned to social media as a space to post questions and concerns. To track and better understand these conversations, the study, entitled Identifying #addiction concerns on twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic: A text mining analysis, works to identify how the public was discussing addiction on Twitter during the pandemic.

To learn more about the study, click here. Other contributors to the study were Gary Wilcox and Joseph Glowacki.

Glowacki’s research interests lie in health communication, message design and strategic messaging, and mobile health. Her work has appeared in Journal of Health Communication, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, and American Journal of Infection Control. She is currently working on a social media and health messaging project with Professor Susan Mello, Communication Studies, on COVID-19 messaging on Instagram. Specifically, Glowacki and Mello are looking at how the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization use Instagram to communicate about the pandemic in a way that emphasizes threat severity and susceptibility, and how they attempt to increase self-efficacy and response efficacy within their audiences. They are co-principal investigators on this project, which is funded by Research Development and the Provost’s Office at Northeastern University.