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Furman’s Shaniece Criss connects dots between social media and birth outcomes

Shaniece Criss, Department of Health Sciences, director, MAAES.

Last updated May 19, 2023

By Tina Underwood

Are words exchanged on social media related to health care or birth outcomes in various regions? Furman University’s Shaniece Criss, associate professor of health sciences and director of the Master of Arts in Advocacy and Equity Studies, explored that question when she presented a TedxFurmanU talk in February titled “Having Babies: From Cotton Fields to Twitter.” She and other researchers with the Big Data for Health Equity Research Collaborative prepared a paper that points to the prevalence of discrimination where negative comments on social media exist. Criss drew from that research in her talk and offered several small ways to help shore up health care disparities among ethnic groups.

Criss holds a bachelor’s from Oglethorpe University and advanced degrees from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Emory University, Rollins School of Public Health, and Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

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