Dr. J. Frost

Every day

information in Dutch

Jeana Frost is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences in the Vrije Universiteit in the area of Health Communication and New Media. She completed her PhD in Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, a National Library of Medicine post doctoral fellowship in the Boston Area program in health behavior and informatics. After her training, she was a senior research scientist at PatientsLikeMe where she worked on both the experience design of the site and analyzing the effect of the site on users. Her work spans the areas of behavioral sciences, psychology and design in order to both understand the psychological mechanisms underlying behavior and create technologies that support people as they participate in their own health care. Currently, her research focuses on the use of new media by patient populations, healthy aging, patient participation in health care and decision making. In a second line of research, Dr. Frost looks at online impression formation and the experience of online dating.

Current Teaching

• Media and entertainment
• Health communication
• Risk perception and decision-making

Current research

• Participatory medicine
• Decision making
• New Media, the Social Web and behavioral medicine
• Online impression formation and mediated relationships

Recent publications

• Frost J., Okun, S., Vaughan, T., Heywood, J, Wicks, P. (2011) Patient-reported Outcomes as a Source of Evidence in Off-Label Prescribing. Journal of Medical Internet Research. (see link to article)
• Frost J. (2010) Innovations in Participatory Medicine: The Advent of Do-It Yourself Blood Glucose Monitoring. Journal of Participatory Medicine. (link to article) 
• Wicks, P., Massagli, M., Frost, J., et. al. (2010) Sharing Health Data for Better Outcomes on PatientsLikeMe. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 12(2):e19.
• Frost, J., Massagli, M., Wicks, P., Heywood, J. (2008) How the Social Web Supports Patient Experimentation with a New Therapy: The demand for patient-centered medical informatics. Proceedings of 2008 Annual Meeting of American Medical Informatics Association. AMIA-0697-A2008.
• Frost, J., Massagli, M. (2008) Social Uses of Personal Health Information within PatientsLikeMe, an Online Patient Community: What can happen when patients have access to one another’s data. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10(3):e15.
• Wicks, P., Frost, J. (2008) ALS Patients Request More Information About Cognitive Symptoms. European Journal of Neurology, 15(5), 497-500
• Frost, J., Chance, Z., Norton, M. and Ariely, D. (2008) People are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 22, 51-61.
• Frost, J., Norton, M., Ariely, D. (2007) Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates. Proceedings of the 70th ASIS&T Annual Meeting, vol. 44.
• Norton, M.I., Frost, J.H. & Ariely, D. (2007) Less is More: The Lure of Ambiguity, or Why Familiarity Breeds Contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 97-105.
• Smith, B. K., Frost, J., Albayrak, M., and Sudhakar, R. (2007) Integrating glucometers and digital photography as experience capture tools to enhance patient understanding and communication of diabetes self-management practices. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 11(4), 273-286.

Selected Conference Papers and Presentations

• Frost, J. (June, 2010) Patient Empowerment and Social Media. Workshop Series: Stichting Stimulansz, Utrecht.
• Frost, J. (January, 2010) Bringing New Information into Healthcare. Mobile Monday Amsterdam, Amsterdam.
• Frost, J. (October 2009) Patients Use of the Social Web: The Demand for Patient-Centered Medical Informatics. Plenary session of the Annual Meeting of the North American Menopause Society, San Diego, CA.
• Frost, J., Okun, S.,Wicks, P., Heywood, J. (September, 2009) Patients Informing Practice: Post-Marketing Drug Data in an Patient-Centered Online Community. Presented at Medicine 2.0 2009, Toronto, Ontario.
• Frost, J. (May, 2008) Citizen Science and Patient-Generated Scientific Knowledge. Institute for the Future, workshop on The Future of Making, Palo Alto, CA