Free lecture: 'People power or pester power? Multiple sclerosis, YouTube, a

Venoplasty - dubbed the 'liberation procedure' - is a controversial possible treatment for MS, based on a disputed theory called 'chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency', or CCSVI. This presentation will explore patients' use of social media to share health experiences, focusing on a study of videos of MS patients undergoing the 'liberation procedure'.

Talk by: Braden O'Neill, DPhil student, Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.

Title: 'People power or pester power? Multiple sclerosis, YouTube, and the liberation procedure'
Date: Wednesday 30th January
Time: 6pm-7pm
Place: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2JA, Oxford. The talk will take place in the Mawby Pavillion
Additional information: The talk is free and there is no need to book

Thousands of videos, some of which have been viewed over 80000 times, are freely available on YouTube, in which people report the effectiveness of this treatment as well as to advocate for its availability.

This talk will highlight some of the tensions that practitioners and policy makers face as patients go online, not only to seek information, but also to share it, and will offer practical solutions for how to engage with this content.

The talk is being presented to students on the Department's MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care - in support of a module on Clinical Epidemiology. The talk is open to both students on the course and interested members of the public.

Braden O'Neill is a DPhil Student at University College, who joined the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences in 2011. His research focuses on people's use of the Internet to acquire and share information about health and illness.

Directions to Rewley House can be found here: www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/findus/index.php

Published 24 January 2013