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Context: Palliative care is known to improve patients' quality of life, but oftentimes these conversations occur outside of the health-care setting.Objectives: To characterize the #PalliativeCare Twitter network and evaluate the caregiver experience within palliative care.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 182,661 #PalliativeCare tweets by 26,837 users from June 1, 2015 to June 1, 2019 were analyzed using Symplur Signals. Analysis included activity metrics, content analysis, user characteristics, engagement, and network analysis. Similar metrics were performed on tweets by self-identified caregivers (482), who wrote a total of 3952 tweets. Qualitative analysis was completed on a systematic sample of caregiver tweets.Results: The number of #PalliativeCare tweets, users, and impressions has increased by an annual average of 18.7%, 16.4%, and 32.5%, respectively. Support, access, and patients were among the Trending Terms. About 39.4% of Trending Articles were scientifically valid, and information about palliative care and comorbidities had the greatest number of articles. The majority of users wrote five or less #PalliativeCare tweets. Network analysis revealed central hubs to be palliative care advocacy organizations and physicians. The five main themes from qualitative analysis of caregiver tweets were 1) advocacy and events, 2) care strategies, 3) resources, 4) public health issues, and 5) myths related to palliative care.Conclusion: The use of Twitter as a platform for palliative care conversations is growing rapidly. Twitter serves as a platform to facilitate #PalliativeCare conversation among patients, caregivers, physicians, and other healthcare providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile health applications may improve patient education and self-care for a complex condition such as atrial fibrillation (AF). Little is known about the accessibility of mobile health applications ("apps") and their readability. We evaluated the readability and quality of available apps for AF. We searched the Apple and Google Play app stores with the terms "atrial fibrillation" and "afib." We downloaded English-language apps (up to n = 100 for each term) and categorized them by name, App store, cost, content, uploading agency (heath care associated [HCA] versus non-HCA), target audience (health care professional [HCP] versus non-HCP), scientific validity (i.e., citation of peer-reviewed or validated medical information), and user ratings. We analyzed the text of apps intended for a non-HCP target audience for readability with 10 established measures. Of the 206 downloaded apps, 50.5% were excluded as unrelated to AF, inaccessible, or non-English language. The majority of apps contained information about AF (63.2% Apple, 52.2% Google Play) and AF detection (52.6% Apple, 56.5% Google Play). A minority of non-HCP apps contained scientifically validated content (Apple, 15.8%; Google Play, 13.0%; P = NS). App mean readability was grade 12.1 ± 2.6. Most AF apps lacked scientific validation and were written at excessively high reading-grade levels. Our results suggest caution with mobile health apps, particularly for users with limited health literacy. There is potential opportunity for a multi-disciplinary effort by regulatory agencies, healthcare organizations, and app stores to improve relevance, scientific validity, and readability of AF apps for patients with this complex and morbid disease. • We systematically examined smartphone apps for atrial fibrillation. • In the majority of apps, we identified content that lacked scientific validation. • Materials for patient education were written at very high reading-grade levels. • We suggest professional society guidelines for app quality and readability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hispanics were the only group that were underrepresented, as all other races/ethnicities had nearly equal representation in melanoma clinical trials relative to the melanoma prevalence percentages. Dear Editor, Melanoma incidence is increasing in the United States without decreases in mortality.1 While Whites have the highest rates of melanoma, people of color (POC) experience a lower overall survival rate for cutaneous melanoma and are diagnosed at later stages.1 Recent data suggest that racial disparity in melanoma-specific survival has worsened since 2010 for Hispanics, non-Hispanic Blacks, and non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islanders.2 POC have historically been excluded from medical research, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) now mandates the inclusion of women and minority groups in all NIH-funded clinical research. In this study, we sought to analyze the racial diversity of participants in recent melanoma research, specifically studies published from 2015 to 2020, to compare clinical trial data with the most recently published prevalence rates of melanoma. [Extracted from the article]