Grace Kong, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, is co-editor of a special issue of Nicotine Tobacco Research titled, “Advances in Social Media Research to Reduce Tobacco Use Supplement.”
Social media platforms, tobacco products, and tobacco promotion are rapidly evolving and intersecting, necessitating advances in the methods and strategies to understand tobacco-related content on social media. Furthermore, there is a pressing need to harness these platforms to mitigate harmful consequences and reduce tobacco use.
The journal’s special issue showcases the latest advancement in research within the field, including methods and measures for analyzing social media; innovative strategies to mitigate the impact of tobacco content on youth; and ethical, technical, and legal considerations of using social media data for research.
The special issue was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and the NIH Office of Disease Prevention.
Kong has served as a principal investigator and co-investigator on multiple National Institutes of Health-funded studies. Her research is focused on preventing youth tobacco use using a variety of methods, such as qualitative and quantitative strategies, including social media analytics to understand tobacco use and promotional trends to inform policies and to develop novel prevention/cessation interventions.
She is also dedicated to preventing tobacco use among marginalized youth, such as youth from low-income and communities of color who may experience disproportionate levels of tobacco-related cancer and other illnesses due to tobacco use in the future.