Audience Profile
March 16th, 2008WHO’S THE AUDIENCE?
Hands down, the majority of my readers are middle-aged men and women from the
Here is a list of the different types of readers that come to my blog:
- Science writers/bloggers
- Science buffs
- Students
- Patients with infectious diseases
- Bloggers writing about non-science topics
Over the course of the last couple months, Infectious Disease Blog has had 292 visits with 161 absolute unique visitors. With the changes I intend to make to the site, I hope my blog’s community will climb toward hundreds of visitors per month.
WHAT DO THEY WANT TO KNOW?
In terms of content, my readers are interested in a few different categories: information about diseases, infectious disease news and events, breakthroughs in research and prevention measures.
WHERE TO FIND THE INFO
April, an infectious disease patient and fellow blogger I’ve corresponded with, told me that information about West Nile Virus and encephalitis was slim to none. She had contacted physicians, experts, the National Institutes of Health, CDC and various hospitals. Even after hundreds of phone calls, she came up with little information about these diseases. She had nowhere else to turn for information but the Internet.
“All my info that is posted on my site, I found from the Internet, specifically due to the fact, no one would tell me a thing about encephalitis or West Nile Virus,” April said.
A lot of my audience’s information comes from the Internet. Any information about new emerging infectious diseases is sparse and won’t show up in magazines or newsletters yet. New information will only hit the newsstands or the airwaves once something newsworthy comes up. Until then, my audience can search the Internet for information to see who else may be talking about the particular disease and find out what they know about it. The Internet’s accessibility of a wide array of information makes it the logical first place to look for details about infectious diseases.
April said she will also tune into the TV or the radio for disease information. She cross references anything she hears on TV, the radio or the Web, searching for “truth or more of same opinion or idea,” she said in an e-mail.
Reading papers from researchers is also a great source of information from the community. April pointed me to PubMed and Medscape as places to look up scientific studies. Beyond that, audience members can read new studies in journals, such as: Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Infectious Disease News, The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. General medical journals such as JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine are also great sources.
Infectious disease organizations like the ones listed in my blogroll are also places where community members can find out about the latest research, events and disease alerts. The CDC and the World Health Organization are the first places to look for advisories and new information about emerging infectious diseases. Other places to look for more information include:
- Infectious Disease Research Institute
- Infectious Diseases Society of
- National Foundation for Infectious Diseases
- National
ONLINE AND OFFLINE
For the segment of my audience who are infectious disease researchers, conferences and meetings are an important way they exchange information. The Web site for Infectious Disease News has an updated calendar of infectious disease events and conferences all over the world.
For example, The Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology, Inc. will host the 13th International Congress on Infectious Diseases this June in
However, April has found that while some institutions may link to each other, she is not sure if they are aware of each other’s studies.
As researchers are always busy with their studies, there is little time for networking. April wishes there was a way researchers studying the same topic could collaborate for the common good.
“If only there were an easier way for all the researchers, clinical trials, etc., to network and HELP each other toward a common goal of obtaining results,” April said via e-mail.
With her comment in mind, I searched for online forums and discussion boards. It seems like most of the forums I found are geared toward the other segments of my audience – patients with infectious diseases, the general public, science writers and bloggers, science buffs and students.
Here are some places to go if you want to chat about infectious diseases:
Regardless of existence of these forums and discussion boards, I noticed that most of them focused on particular diseases. There was a lack of forums for talking about infectious diseases in general, which would include topics like rare diseases, the emergence of new diseases and prevention measures.
A few of the science bloggers I corresponded with over the quarter said they participated in these online discussions. They unanimously encouraged participation in these communities. However, these bloggers gravitated more toward communicating directly with each other, leaving comments on each other’s blogs. One problem I noticed in the forums was that the most recent comments were months or even years old. It’s not that people aren’t interested in discussing. There’s just not a central place to for people to discuss infectious diseases.