AICR
This year, AICR is trying something different at our Annual Research Conference on Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer next week. Something we hope will act as a clarion call for cancer researcher and health professionals.
We’ve all gone to conferences where the social media engagement is limited to attendees being encouraged to tweet their experiences. But at a breakfast session first thing in the morning on November 8th, AICR is hosting a special panel to discuss how scientists can engage in meaningful conversations with the public using social media.
There is an urgent need for responsible, evidence-based cancer information in social media, and unfortunately this need, in many cases, is now being met by self-appointed health “gurus” who make unverifiable or patently false claims. Now is the time for informed, rational voices to enter the furious ongoing discussion. We must provide context and sober, well-informed resources and information.
Social media gives scientists and practitioners with a means of sharing their work and engaging in a meaningful two-way discussion with a wider audience.
The panel discussion will provide real-world examples of different ways social media can be used in service of several different professional aims, and reveal how social media fits within the future of cancer prevention and survivorship.
The breakfast session will be chaired by epidemiologist Kate Wolin, SCD, FACSM, at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine. It will feature Karen Basen-Engquist, PhD, MPH, at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Sherry Pagato, PhD, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
All of us here at AICR are looking forward to the discussion. If you’re not attending our research conference, just bookmark this blog and follow #AICR13 on twitter for updates throughout the event.
