Social network based model for dengue prevention

Despite of numerous preventive measures being taken by governments, efforts to prevent and control dengue have met little success in many dengue endemic countries. This knowledge gap creates the need to find out the view of citizen on dengue prevention and monitoring initiatives. This empirical study proposes to integrate social support theory to an existing theoretical model to test the intention of the users to use social media for healthcare, focusing dengue health information. Existing model was formulated based on two theories; technology acceptance model and theory of reasoned action. It lacks the social support perspective that is exchanged through social network sites. The hypothesized model will be tested with data to be collected from social network sites and survey of citizens from online community, who are users of social networking sites. The outcome from this study will be useful in the prevention and management of dengue outbreak. As dengue is economically devastating for individuals and the government, any initiatives to the prevention of dengue would be useful for both citizens and the government.