Social media: A novel engagement tool for miners in rural New Mexico

Background: New Mexico miners usually live in rural areas. As compared to urban areas, rural areas in the United States demonstrate a lower use of the Internet and lower adoption of new technologies such as the smartphone and social media. Our study objective was to examine the use of these technologies among miners in rural New Mexico. Our long-term goal is to utilize these technologies to increase our program’s engagement with miners to provide medical screening and education services. Methods: We anonymously surveyed 212 miners at two town hall meetings in rural New Mexico communities, predominantly Hispanic and American Indian, in 2017. We then compiled that data in a Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) database and performed a statistical analysis using Statistical Analysis Software (SAS). IRB approval was obtained. Results: 60.8% of the 212 surveyed miners reported using social media. Among social media users, 88.4% reported using Facebook. Most miners expressed willingness to use social media to keep in contact with other miners (51.2% overall) or to receive information about our miners’ program services (53.9% overall); and social media users were more likely to do so than non-users (p<0.001 for both analyses). Additionally, 79.7% of miners who owned a smartphone utilized it for texting. Conclusions: A majority of miners in rural New Mexico report use of social media and express willingness to use social media to network with other miners and with our program. The adoption of these communication technologies by rural New Mexico miners in our study is comparable or superior to that reported by rural Americans overall. It is possible to utilize this newer technology to increase program engagement with miners

Age differences in outcome after mild traumatic brain injury: results from the HeadSMART study.

This study longitudinally examined age differences across multiple outcome domains in individuals diagnosed with acute mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). A sample of 447 adults meeting VA/DoD criteria for mTBI was dichotomized by age into older (≥65 years