Digital Epidemiology: Leveraging Social Media for Insight into Epilepsy and Mental Health

TL;DR

This study demonstrates digital epidemiology for epilepsy and mental health by analyzing 57,681 Reddit posts and 533,994 comments from r/Epilepsy to reveal demographic patterns, temporal trends, and depression signals. It introduces two key contributions: a novel engagement metric, $F(P) = l \cdot (1 + \sum_{i=1}^{N_c} s_i) \cdot S_f$, and the use of DepRoBERTa-large-depression for automatic depression detection, validated against human annotations. The work shows distinct topic dynamics across age, gender, and caregiver relationships, and reports substantial depression signals, strongest in younger adults and in relational contexts like parents and romantic partners, with seizures showing the strongest symptom-depression correlation. Practically, the findings inform targeted outreach, gender- and age-specific resources, and integrated neuro-mental health care, highlighting the utility of social media as a real-time auxiliary instrument for public health monitoring and intervention planning.

Abstract

Social media platforms, particularly Reddit's r/Epilepsy community, offer a unique perspective into the experiences of individuals with epilepsy (PWE) and their caregivers. This study analyzes 57k posts and 533k comments to explore key themes across demographics such as age, gender, and relationships. Our findings highlight significant discussions on epilepsy-related challenges, including depression (with 39.75\% of posts indicating severe symptoms), driving restrictions, workplace concerns, and pregnancy-related issues in women with epilepsy. We introduce a novel engagement metric, F(P), which incorporates post length, sentiment scores, and readability to quantify community interaction. This analysis underscores the importance of integrated care addressing both neurological and mental health challenges faced by PWE. The insights from this study inform strategies for targeted support and awareness interventions.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Temporal Distribution of r/Epilepsy posts.
• Figure 2: Relationship (to PWE) extraction pipeline.
• Figure 3: Distribution of age mentioned in r/Epilepsy posts.
• Figure 4: Correlation Matrix of Symptoms in Epilepsy.
• Figure 5: Distribution of Medications in r/Epilepsy posts.