My new methods paper on internet search patterns and health policy

Below is the abstract to a paper I've just had published with two colleagues.

Comments welcome.

The paper is:

Zheluk A, Gillespie JA, Quinn C

Searching for Truth: Internet Search Patterns as a Method of Investigating Online Responses to a Russian Illicit Drug Policy Debate

J Med Internet Res 2012;14(6):e165

URL: http://www.jmir.org/2012/6/e165/

doi: 10.2196/jmir.2270

PMID: 23238600

Objective: This study had two main objectives. First, to validate Yandex search patterns against those provided by Google, and second, to test this method's adequacy for investigating online interest in a 2010 national debate over Russian illicit drug policy. We hoped to learn what search patterns and specific search terms could reveal about the relative importance and geographic distribution of interest in this debate.

Methods: A national drug debate, centering on the anti-drug campaigner Egor Bychkov, was one of the main Russian domestic news events of 2010. Public interest in this episode was accompanied by increased Internet search. First, we measured the search patterns for 13 search terms related to the Bychkov episode and concurrent domestic events by extracting data from Google Insights for Search (GIFS) and Yandex WordStat (YaW). We conducted Spearman Rank Correlation of GIFS and YaW search data series. Second, we coded all 420 primary posts from Bychkov's personal blog between March 2010 and March 2012 to identify the main themes. Third, we compared GIFS and Yandex policies concerning the public release of search volume data. Finally, we established the relationship between salient drug issues and the Bychkov episode.

Results: We found a consistent pattern of strong to moderate positive correlations between Google and Yandex for the terms "Egor Bychkov" (r_s = 0.88, P< .001), “Bychkov” (r_s = .78, P < .001) and “Khimki”(r_s = 0.92, P < .001). Peak search volumes for the Bychkov episode were comparable to other prominent domestic political events during 2010. Monthly search counts were 146,689 for “Bychkov” and 48,084 for “Egor Bychkov”, compared to 53,403 for “Khimki” in Yandex. We found Google potentially provides timely search results, whereas Yandex provides more accurate geographic localization. The correlation was moderate to strong between search terms representing the Bychkov episode and terms representing salient drug issues in Yandex–“illicit drug treatment” (r_s = .90, P < .001), "illicit drugs" (r_s = .76, P < .001), and "drug addiction" (r_s = .74, P < .001). Google correlations were weaker or absent–"illicit drug treatment" (r_s = .12, P = .58), “illicit drugs ” (r_s = -0.29, P = .17), and "drug addiction" (r_s = .68, P < .001).

Conclusions: This study contributes to the methodological literature on the analysis of search patterns for public health. This paper investigated the relationship between Google and Yandex, and contributed to the broader methods literature by highlighting both the potential and limitations of these two search providers. We believe that Yandex Wordstat is a potentially valuable, and underused data source for researchers working on Russian-related illicit drug policy and other public health problems. The Russian Federation, with its large, geographically dispersed, and politically engaged online population presents unique opportunities for studying the evolving influence of the Internet on politics and policy, using low cost methods resilient against potential increases in censorship.

(J Med Internet Res 2012;14(6):e165)
doi:10.2196/jmir.2270

OK. Just to clarify my attitude to Russian drug warrior Royzman

OK. a couple of hours ago I got a tweet asking why I was popularising Royzman. It was from someone I take seriously. Hence this response.

This blog post is intended to clarify my personal position towards Royzman, and to explain why I  would bother writing about Royzman at all.

a. I believe Royzman is a rogue drug warrior.  I believe Royzman's activities are based on no scientific evidence, unproven, and that he engages in vigilantism against ethnic minorities and alleged drug dealers. And most likely, that he has routinely over a number of years engaged in torture, forced detention and woefully inadequate medical care of his "clients". This assertion is based on reports on his blog and widely circulated in the Russian media recently.

 

b.  I believe there is strong international evidence  that Russian illicit drug dependency services (narcology) is unscientific, ineffective, and hostage to the same informal payment structures that affect much of post-Soviet health care in Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries. Royzman exists in part because of the failures of Russian narcology.

c. I believe harm reduction, including the use of methadone and appropriate long term rehabilitation for people with illicit drug dependency problems has largely been sabotaged by successive Russian federal administrations., and in particular the orthodox (?/Orthodox) medical establishment and Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN). Reading comments across the Russian media, many people who are themselves drug dependent, or have drug dependent children, report feeling so powerless that they believe they have nowhere else to turn, and so take a chance with Royzman.

d. I believe Royzman runs a very effective PR machine on a national scale. On more than a national scale. I've read quite a lot about Royzman in Ukrainian and other Russophere blogs


e. Royzman has openly admitted his connections with organised crime. In addition, he was briefly associated with the oligarch Prokhorov in a strangely mismanaged political coup within one of Russia's federal (semi-) opposition parties late in 2011.  Oh, and he has a personal criminal history of fraud. And managed to skip doing mandatory military service somehow.

f. I believe the key to improving the situation with HIV and illicit drug use is changing policy.  Royzman is an ambiguous figure in the illicit drug policy landscape. I believe ignoring the "Royzman factor" in any discussion of Russian drug policy is to brush over much of the complexity of popular attitudes to illicit drug use. I don't believe it's possible to brush away all Royzman supporters as simple ORT 1 TV -watching "lokhy". How to explain Echo Moscow and Novaya Gazeta's support for Royzman? Or the Moscow Helsinki Group's support for Egor Bychkov a couple of years ago? Then again, it might be that the liberal media need Royzman as much as he needs them.  A mutually monetising relationship, as someone put to me recently.

g. Just because I find the "Royzman factor" in Russian drug policy and politics academically interesting, it doesn't mean I support his ideas. Royzman is hugely popular in Russia and almost unknown in the Anglosphere. As a theme for  a doctoral thesis, (mine) he is almost perfect. He is the Dark Knight. By that, he is almost a cartoon character. A 1970's -style macho, a poet, painter, an icon collector, a crime fighter battling with crooked cops and drug dealers etc. Who wouldn't want to write about this Dark Knight?

h. This blog is a sandbox for ideas. That's it. I'm happy to discuss what goes up here, privately,  if anyone believes what I write about Royzman is having an adverse impact on their real world activities You can send me a direct message via Twitter @aintnso.

That's it for now. I'll put in hyperlinks above to back up my statements tomorrow or the day after.

What happened next at Russian drug warrior Royzman's rehab centres?

So what happened next at Royzman's controversial drug rehabilitation centres? I wrote here about the events that happened at Royzman's centre's a few weeks ago. Here are some photos inside one of the rehabilitation centres. Things don't sound so great for Royzman just now. Below is the text a blog post I've just translated, taken from Royzman's blog on 25 July 2012. (here is the original Russian language link.)

"There are only 14 people left at the Beloyarka rehab centre. It's a big place with lots of workshops attached. We've already closed the repair and woodworking workshops. I guess we'll have to close down the rest in a while.

There are only four people left in the women's rehab centre now. Before, there were 50. And a queue of 250 waiting to get in. And our children's centre is empty.

The Izzoplit centre is unusually quiet. Everything is open, but there are no people. All the rooms are empty.Sixteen people left. From when we started in 2000, there have always been at least 100 people here, and up to 150 at any given time.

However, there are a few cars at the gates. Some parents have come here. I went out, and they stepped out of the way to let me pass. "Take our son. Please. When can you take him?"

Another mother is crying. She's standing there with a her bag. Her son is an alcoholic. He was with us for a month, then didn't drink for two years. He held himself together. And he knew, if there was a problem, his mother had someone to turn to. So whenever he started to show of signs of slipping, his mother would utter some magical words, and he regained his senses.

And sure enough, when they started to crush us a couple of months ago, he started to drink again. He beat up his mother. She came to us. We couldn't take him. So she called some of our guys, who took him to a psychiatric hospital. The hospital  shot him up with a bunch of drugs and let him go. He went home, and trashed his mother's apartment. So  his mother ran away, and called the police.

Next came the cops. First they took him to the cop station, where they kicked his ass, and then they took him to get zapped with electroconvulsive therapy at the psych hospital. So the psych hospital soon kicked him out again. Now he is sitting at his mother's house, waiting to ambush her. And now, she is too scared to go home. It's been three days so far. "Help me!" she said.But how are we supposed to help, now?

"Well, you might as well come on in," I said."You can stay with us. We've got plenty of room now."

UPDATE: I forgot to mention this: Royzman's blog posted is titled "The Fascist flew by." It is a reference to a 1941 Soviet painting, where the Bad Guys (aka Nazis) whizz past in a fighter plane, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind them. It is a pretty clear reference to the recent raids conducted againt Royzman's drug rehabilitation facilities. Looks like Royzman believes he's done for. Does anyone survive such serious wounds?

Deciphering Russian drug warrior Royzman's popularity - in his own words

This week I wanted to write some more about Russian drug warrior Yevgeniy Royzman. Royzman is having some serious problems with keeping his controversial illicit drug rehabilitation centres going just now. What I've done is translated one of Royzman's blogs directly, rather than through Google Translate.

I've done my own translation to give a more vernacular flowing narrative style to the episode. The reason I've done this, is to try and give an insight into why Royzman is so popular among so many Russians. In his own words.

Pervouralsk. Lovely place.

"In Pervouralsk some guys were sitting around in a garage drinking one evening. A foreman and a couple of people from his work team. They all worked at the Pipeworks. Regular working joes. Not big drinkers. So, after they'd had a couple of drinks, they went to the bus stop to see the foreman off home, before walking another 100 metres home. And then some cops in a car stop them, and invite them down to the local police station.


“Let’s go down to the station,” said the cops. “No problems", the guys said, "Let’s go.” And so, they brought these two guys by car to the local police station.

The Thin Blue Line

And at the police station, the fun began. “Sign the statement!” The statement said “Drunk and disorderly behaviour - swearing in public”. What? These are peaceful people. they were going home. Not bothering anyone. They’d had a couple of drinks, but so what? And then, the older of the two, a 54 year old fitter and turner by trade, refused to sign the police statement. “Why should I,” he said. “I wasn’t swearing.”

Then, they lead him down the corridor to the toilets. There one of the cops hit him in his temple with a truncheon. The fitter lost counciousness. When he woke up, he was on the floor, in the toilet. He’d been beaten up, and he was covered in urine.His hands were handcuffed behind his back.

Then they beat him some more. He was beaten by one of the senior policemen. The fitter said to the senior police officer - “I’ll remember you - and you’ll do time for this.” So the senior cop started to laugh, and says to the older guy, “Listen pal, you fell over and hit your head on the cistern here.” Then, he threw the older guys jacket on the floor, and pissed on it. And then the cop beat the older guy some more. Finally, beaten bloody and covered in piss, the older guy signed the statement. He signed everything. I don’t judge him for this. They would have killed him otherwise. They ended up by throwing him out on the streeet. But not before 10000 rubles (around $US300) had strangely disappeared from his wallet.

In the morning , the older guy went to get a medical examination. Concussion, bruising, handcuff marks. An hour later, some cops turn up at his front door. And the older guy looks the cop in the eye and realises “It’s the same one from last night!” Then, he composed a statement to commence action against the police through the local Prosecutor’s Office. The Prosecutor’s Office told him that was the wrong channel to be lodging complaints. So he went to the Office of Investigations, where they told him he didn’t have sufficient evidence.

And really, how a re you going to prove anything? Then they started humming and buzzing and showing signs of activity. Calling everyone in for polygraph tests and so on. What did the old fitter have to lose? He told it like it was.But they didn’t provide him with a the results of their investigation. “These are,” they said apologetically, “for our official use”.

After all of this had happened, I spoke with the older guy. He was calm and assured. He still had the handcuff marks. I can see, that he’s telling the truth. And the scariest thing is that I’m not at all surprised by what happened.

Why aren’t I surprised? After the incident with the Turdinsky cops, where the cops had a good laugh as two prisoners in the lockup raped another each other, gave advice, recorded everything on their cell phones, and then boasted about the incident to their friends. After that, why would I be surprised? And because, it seems we all understand that this is the kind of behaviour we expect from cops that run large scale pedophilia rings in police academies. (Original via Google Translate).

There you have it. A call to action. Royzman in his own words. Are you convinced? Lots of people are. Interestingly, all Russian police went re-accreditation about 12 months ago. To make them less corrupt and responsive to customer service. Judging by Royzman's telling of this story, and many more stories on Russian blogs and news reports, the police re-accreditation process hasn't really done anything.

Will recent Russian law changes freeze online drug policy debate?

Will recent Russian freeze stop the intense online debate over drug policy? Here is the list of laws passed over the last week or so:

• A law black listing internet sites (ostensibly aimed at stoping child pornography, drugs and suicide)
• A law placing onerous conditions on NGOs
• A new anti-defamation law

In addition the following ideas have been floated:

• A law regulating volunteering
• Laws requiring all media organisations to declare their foreign ownership status

Meanwhile, RSS podcast feed titles like these from Russian national broadcaster Echo Moscow started appearing:

• Conformism as a survival strategy: from Stalin to Putin
• Do we need a law on volunteering?
• The media as a foreign agent of influence
• New rules of the game for the Russian internet
• Political asylum overseas for opposition leaders
• The law on internet censorship
• Who's afraid of NGOs?

It was the normally sober Echo Moscow that I accuse of breaking Godwin’s Law. (ie the person that mentions Hitler/Stalin first in an argument loses). I couldn't help but post a picture the Engineer of Human Souls as this week’s image in response.

So...? 

It looks like  a broad assault on anyone opposed to the Russian government at the moment.  The new laws are  knives and swords swinging wildly at activists on the both the liberal left, and the socially conservative right.

And this spells potential trouble ahead for socially liberal and socially conservative drug policy reformers alike.

Earlier this year, the website of the donor-funded socially liberal, activist drug reform organisation, the  Andrey Rylkov Foundation was shut by the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN). Their website was back online soon enough. However, this new federal Russian legislation specifically targets drug related information. And the various pieces of legislation combined may make activism for evidence -informed illicit drug policy a lot tougher in the future.

And on the socially conservative side, rogue drug warrior Evgeny Royzman too, seems to be in trouble.Government prosecutors are currently waging a campaign against “City Without Drugs” following the death of a client a couple of weeks ago. Royzman is not only disliked by social liberals. I recall hearing some interviews late in 2011 on Echo Moscow, suggesting that Putin's "United Russia" Party considered Royzman's brand of vigilantism and  right-wing populism a real political threat. Royzman has also directed accusations of incompetence and corruption at police, courts, and the medical establishment. Now, much of his bluster has gone, and Royzman is starting to sound a bit desperate and exasperated in some recent blog posts.

What is clear, is that most Russian independent media outlets don't have much positive to say about the impending changes to information laws. On the face of it, the combined effect of these laws does threaten to stifle an incredibly free and dynamic online media culture. 

On the other hand, it's also true that these changes aren't likely to affect the day to day lives of 99% of Russians.

We can only hope that the popular maxim about the severity of Russian laws being balanced by the extent of their non-observance will apply to this raft of new laws in the weeks and months ahead.

However, what seems almost certain, is that the NGO and information laws will be selectively applied to those individuals and groups that most irritate the Russian establishment. That is, human rights groups, drug policy reformers, and "orange revolution"- style democracy promoters

And why would the Russian federal government want to start passing these restrictions? 

To stop allegations of corruption.  These moves seem designed to mute criticism of the government. To mute opposition. No big ideas. No ideology. Just $.

And tightening the screws seems to be the only policy lever available.

The chilling effects of increased censorship seem just around the corner. 

So much for my cheerful optimism and excitement celebrating the colourful anarchy of the Russian internet  of a few weeks ago on this blog.

More on rogue Russian drug warrior Yevgeny Royzman

In my last blog post, I described  a police raid on Yevgeny Royzman's women's drug rehabilitation centre in Yekaterinburg. In this blog post, I've described some of the latest events swirling around Russian drug warrior Yevgeny Royzman.

If you are a Russia watcher, you are already aware of the proposed NGO law and internet censorship laws. These are important issues that will surely influence the direction of illicit drug policy in Russia over coming years. However, I'll write about these changes in my next post. This post is dedicated to Yevgeny Royzman.

This blog is feeling a bit dry without photos so:

Here are some photos of the police raid. 

Inside “City Without Drugs” men's rehabilitation centre in Yekaterinburg 

Public rally in support of Royzman

Why my fixation with Royzman?

Basically, because the debate over current Russian drug policy is in part a debate over Royzman.  Royzman is at the vanguard of populist support for a punitive, Soviet-style approach to drug users and to drug use in Russia. Further, Royzman is helped along by both his personal popularity as one of Russia's top bloggers, and by the widespread support he gets from independent national media outlets like Echo Moscow. He is charismatic, he is articulate and he has influence.

What has Royzman done now?

In my last post, I described police raids on Royzman's controversial drug rehabilitation centre "City Without Drugs" in Yekaterinburg. The most recent police raids followed the death of a client, 29 year old Tatyana Kazantseva.  This is not the first controversy surrounding Royzman's rehabilitation centres. City without Drugs centres have for a long time attracted controversy due to their harsh and unscientific methods. These include unqualified staff enforced detentions, handcuffing and employing diet restrictions and punishments on clients experiencing illicit drug withdrawal.

On 2nd July 2012, psychiatrist-turned-celebrity Yevgeny Bilzho wrote a journalistic account of his visit to Royzman's rehab centre in Yekaterinburg. "Royzman has saved very very many young lives," Bilzho wrote. Overall, Bilzho gave a strongly positive assessment of Royzman's centre,  describing it as  operating along the lines of "any classic psychiatric clinic".  The significance of this, is that as with many previous articles. they have appeared first on the Echo Moscow site.  Echo Moscow is generally regarded as a liberal ie "opposition" media organisation. And yet, they support Royzman.

On 5 July 2012, Royzman held a national Moscow  press conference in Moscow, describing these police raids. During that press conference, Royzman claimed the raids on his centre were motivated primarily by his refusal to pay protection money to local police.  And that the recent Tatyana Kazantseva's death merely served as the pretext for conducting raids. During the press conference, Royzman answered several questions from journalists. One of these journalists, Anastasia Kuzina, from the national paper/website Moskovskiy Komsomolets asked Royzman several questions about persistent allegations of physical punishments and torture directed at drug rehabilitation clients. Royzman responded  “If an addict claims that he was poorly treated in one of our rehabilitation centres, then, translating this into everyday Russian, this means “they didn't let me inject drugs”.  Responding to another question, Royzman said "We have no physical punishments.  We might force them to squat (for one or two hours – A. Kuzina – sic)  But it's like in the army - you go down, you do a few push ups. What’s wrong with that?”

Based on the Royzman's responses,  Anastasia Kuzina arrived at an uncomfortable conclusion. ”Despite the many question marks over Royzman's so called methods, it's also hard not to agree with Royzman," she said.  "Organisations like his grow precisely because the government doesn't help drug dependent people.  Families have nowhere to turn. And neither do drug dependent people themselves.  On the other hand, it's still unclear what rehabilitation is in any case - there are no standards, nor evaluation criteria.  And so, all of this continues, and the government is silent. Royzman is all we have. And that is frightening."  Overall, this summary pretty much sums up the mixed feelings many people have towards Royzman's activities on many blogs I've read.

Thirdly, the regional government opened a state-funded illicit drug rehabilitation centre in a small town called Karpinsk, located within the in same administrative region where Royzman operates. This was a smart move by the regional government, I think.  One of Royzman's sources of legitimacy has been that he is able to provide services where the government has been unable or unwilling.  However, Russia is big. And the Karpinsk centre is about 400km away from the main city, Yekaterinburg, where Royzman's rehab centres are located.  Royzman didn't take this challenge lying down. Royzman countered by saying "You've been lied to. There is no rehabilitation centre open in Karpinsk. It's not finished. They can't get medical staff to work there. There is no running water yet. It is still as far away as China." He also posted some photos on his blog  Here is Royzman's blog post squeezed through Google Translate.

So in summary, we've entered another stage in an ongoing information war between a populist and popular Royzman,  professionals and unpopular police and politicians. I'll finish off with a quote I found today in a Russian paper describing Royzman's largely malign influence. “Today, thanks to mass media and the internet, Royzman is able to manipulate masses of readers and sympathisers. Contemporary technologies have allowed him to achieve unprecedented influence. And what is his final goal? We can only guess. Especially when we take into account Royzman's opaque suggestions about mass rallies of people onto the streets of Yekaterinburg in protest against police lawlessness and corruption.” Here is the link filtered through Google Translate. 

So why is  any of this important to the future of illicit drug policy in Russia? That, I'll cover in more detail my next post in a few days.

Rogue drug warrior Royzman in the news (again)

OK.  I'm in the middle of  re-writing a paper for journal submission.  So I don't have time for much more than a quick check in. 

The provincial Russian city of Yekaterinburg has been a busy place over the last few days. 

Apologies in advance for some of the slightly dodgy translations via Google Translate below. I figure the material is timely and sufficiently compelling for you to consider persevering.

Links are to English language material unless otherwise indicated.

So what's up?

About one week ago, charismatic xenophobe, torturer, and controversial drug warrior, Evgeny Royzman (via Google Translate) had one of his illicit drug rehabilitation centres in Yekaterinburg raided by the police.

Then, shortly thereafter, Royzman set off getting himself (currently in the process) elected to a national civil society/human rights body (Google Translate), while being praised (Google Translate) by blogger superstar Alexy Navalny.

Meanwhile, back in Yekaterinburg,  Andrey Rylkov Foundation  President Anya Sarang @anyasarang)  has been busy posting interviews with sex workers (Google Translate) about their "volunteer" work with local police. Oh, and with some of Royzman's former inmates too (Google Translate) .

You may want to come back to this blog  in a few days to see what happened next.