Promoting Health Behaviors with Help of Online Social Ties: An Exploratory Study

Human behavior is the largest source of variance in health-related outcome, and the increasingly popular online health network can be used to promote health behavior and health outcome. Based on social norm, social support and number of social ties, this study explores how different online social ties correlate with the health behavior of users. With the ordered logistic regression model, we find that social norms and social supports from online social ties positive related with both dietary and exercise behavior. We also find that the competing relationship gets a stronger relationship with behavior than the mutual support relationship. This study extends the research on health behavior to online social environment. The result could be used for guiding users to make use of online social ties for changing and keeping health behavior; and for helping the healthcare website improve their services.