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Online Health Social Network
Online health social networks are voluntarily formed social relationships among people who share similar health interests, concerns, and goals. It may take the forms of online support groups, online health social networking sites, or offline social relationships that have online presences for health-related purposes. Online health social networks have provided people with more opportunities to seek and exchange social support, which contributes to people's physical and mental well-being. Online social influence is also underway in spreading health behavior changes.
Selected publications:
Meng, J., Shin, S. Y., Van Der Heide, B., *Arram Bae (2020). Time-Dependent Effects of Relational Composition on the Success of Online Wellness Challenge Groups. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25, 147-162.
Meng, J., *Chung, M., & *Cox, J. (2016). Social networks and social support: Linking network structures to support messages in an online health social network. Journal of Communication, 66(6), 982-1006. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12268.
Meng, J. (2016). Your health buddies matter: Preferential and social influence on weight management in an online health social network. Health Communication, 31, 1460- 1471. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2015.1079760.
Artificial Intelligence for Mental Health
Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in understanding the effectiveness of using AI agents for delivering mental health services to people who are experiencing stress and depression. My primary interest is to bridge the gaps between interpersonal communication, human-computer interaction, and therapist-client communication to understand what and how should AI agents communicate so that they are considered as trustworthy and caring support providers and help to reduce people's stress through conversations.
Selected publications:
Meng, J., & Dai, YN. (2021). Emotional support from AI chatbots: Should a supportive partner self-disclose or not? Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. OnlineFirst, MediaCoverage
Communication Technology and Health
Communication technologies have a profound influence on how people access and disseminate health information. Mobile sensing technology enables real-time monitoring of personal data that can be factored in to predict people's health behavior and conditions. Coupled with social networks formed via the Internet, people are able to easily observe others' health-related choices, magnifying social influence on health behaviors.
Selected publications:
Meng, J., Peng, W., *Soo, Y. S., & *Chung, M. (2017). Self-tracking in online groups to increase fruit and vegetable consumption: The effects of demographic similarity, social comparison and performance discrepancy. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19:e63. DOI: 10.2196/jmir.6537.
Meng, J., *Hussain, S. A., Mohr, C. D., Czerwinski, M., & Zhang, M. (2018). Understanding the needs of mobile behavioral monitoring technology for depression management from clinician and patient perspectives. Journal of Medical Internet Research, Special Issue on Computing and Mental Health, 20: e10139. doi: 10.2196/10139. MediaCoverage
Meng, J., Peng, W., Tan, Pang-Ning, *Liu, W., *Cheng, Y., *Arram Bae (2018). The scale and the range of information transmission: The impact of message and network features on spreading health messages in social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 89, 111-120.
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