In over 50,000 posts on 453 channels monitored across three months, mental health has emerged as the most discussed disease area above Singapore's leading causes of death, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. The research looked at 17 disease areas.
Depression, anxiety and stress were the leading mental health topics discussed during the research period from October to December 2010. Other disease areas in the top ten list are skin diseases (dominated by mentions around acne and pimples) in second position followed by cardiovascular diseases, women's health, metabolic diseases, gastro intestinal diseases, respiratory diseases, muscular/ skeletal diseases, infectious diseases and cancer, the number one cause of death among Singaporeans, in tenth place.
“Mental health is a significant issue in Singapore, with depression and anxiety creating the greatest disease burden of any disease or condition for 15 to 34 year olds in Singapore,” said Rachael Bylykbashi, Edelman’s Southeast Asia health director.
“Stigma and prejudice may be a reason why so many people go online to find answers from others about conditions such as depression. However, what’s alarming is that there is a lot of self diagnosis and random pieces of advice and commentary flying around from seemingly unqualified sources,” she added.
Bylykbashi goes on to say that there are opportunities for health organisations and professionals to engage consumers online by enabling discussion and providing disease-specific information that is both relevant and more importantly, backed by science.
As for the most popular channels, Yahoo Answers Singapore, Flowerpod Forum and HardwareZone Forum are the centre of gravity for health-related mentions online, followed closely by Twitter Singapore.
The Digital Health Index (DHI) marks the first research project in Asia-Pacific to unveil the most discussed disease and illness areas online, the most active channels and the most interesting subject areas. The study is aimed at helping government organisations, healthcare companies and professionals address the most pressing needs of their communities.
Methodology
- In partnership with Brandtology, Edelman monitored over two million online mentions across 17 disease areas, 40 major health issues and 60 pharmaceutical and consumer health companies (including company name variants) across 2,436 channels.
- Data was analysed from 1 October through to 31 December 2010.
- The nine markets launching the DHI include Singapore, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea and Japan.
- Brandtology proprietary technology provides access to data that is not freely available via other search engines or free social media research tools. This means the data should be more comprehensive than what most people can source themselves.
- The conditions and diseases were selected by Edelman health experts, resulting in a comprehensive list of 17 disease areas and health issues. Channels were also selected based on insights from each of the nine markets. Edelman offices in each market then provided English and translated brand names which were the basis of the research.
- DHI covers Twitter, or local micro-blogging variants, if the local Edelman office chose this as a channel to research. Brandtology also monitored local Facebook Groups that were specific to the key words surveyed.
