[Colloq] Masters Thesis Defense - Ramesh Manuvinakurike - Thursday May 2nd, 11:30am, 366 WVH

[Jessica Biron]

Ramesh Manuvinakurike 

Thursday, May 2nd 
11:30am 366 WVH 

Abstract: 

Previous studies have shown that a large percentage of people search 
for someone else's experience with health behavior change. Previous 
studies have also shown that stories encoding health information are 
an effective tool for promoting health behavior change. By collecting 
health stories from blogs, social networks, public forums and other 
online resources we can create a database of stories that could be 
tailored to users for health interventions. In this thesis I explore 
the delivery of health stories tailored to users based on health 
behavior change theory, demographics and quality metrics. The medium 
of delivering these stories is also explored in a pilot study with 103 
participants.