Twitter as a Tool for Health Research: A Systematic Review
01 Jan 2017-American Journal of Public Health (American Public Health Association)-Vol. 107, Iss: 1, pp 143-143
TL;DR: A new taxonomy to describe Twitter use in health research with 6 categories is identified and many data elements discernible from a user's Twitter profile are underreported in the literature and can provide new opportunities to characterize the users whose data are analyzed in these studies.
Abstract: Background. Researchers have used traditional databases to study public health for decades. Less is known about the use of social media data sources, such as Twitter, for this purpose.Objectives. To systematically review the use of Twitter in health research, define a taxonomy to describe Twitter use, and characterize the current state of Twitter in health research.Search methods. We performed a literature search in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and CINAHL through September 2015.Selection criteria. We searched for peer-reviewed original research studies that primarily used Twitter for health research.Data collection and analysis. Two authors independently screened studies and abstracted data related to the approach to analysis of Twitter data, methodology used to study Twitter, and current state of Twitter research by evaluating time of publication, research topic, discussion of ethical concerns, and study funding source.Main results. Of 1110 unique health-related articles mentioning Twi...
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: The main topics posted by Twitter users related to the COVID-19 pandemic were identified and grouped into four main themes: origin of the virus; its sources; its impact on people, countries, and the economy; and ways of mitigating the risk of infection.
Abstract: Background: The recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is taking a toll on the world’s health care infrastructure as well as the social, economic, and psychological well-being of humanity. Individuals, organizations, and governments are using social media to communicate with each other on a number of issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not much is known about the topics being shared on social media platforms relating to COVID-19. Analyzing such information can help policy makers and health care organizations assess the needs of their stakeholders and address them appropriately.
Objective: This study aims to identify the main topics posted by Twitter users related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: Leveraging a set of tools (Twitter’s search application programming interface (API), Tweepy Python library, and PostgreSQL database) and using a set of predefined search terms (“corona,” “2019-nCov,” and “COVID-19”), we extracted the text and metadata (number of likes and retweets, and user profile information including the number of followers) of public English language tweets from February 2, 2020, to March 15, 2020. We analyzed the collected tweets using word frequencies of single (unigrams) and double words (bigrams). We leveraged latent Dirichlet allocation for topic modeling to identify topics discussed in the tweets. We also performed sentiment analysis and extracted the mean number of retweets, likes, and followers for each topic and calculated the interaction rate per topic.
Results: Out of approximately 2.8 million tweets included, 167,073 unique tweets from 160,829 unique users met the inclusion criteria. Our analysis identified 12 topics, which were grouped into four main themes: origin of the virus; its sources; its impact on people, countries, and the economy; and ways of mitigating the risk of infection. The mean sentiment was positive for 10 topics and negative for 2 topics (deaths caused by COVID-19 and increased racism). The mean for tweet topics of account followers ranged from 2722 (increased racism) to 13,413 (economic losses). The highest mean of likes for the tweets was 15.4 (economic loss), while the lowest was 3.94 (travel bans and warnings).
Conclusions: Public health crisis response activities on the ground and online are becoming increasingly simultaneous and intertwined. Social media provides an opportunity to directly communicate health information to the public. Health systems should work on building national and international disease detection and surveillance systems through monitoring social media. There is also a need for a more proactive and agile public health presence on social media to combat the spread of fake news.
552 citations
Cites background from "Twitter as a Tool for Health Resear..."
...A systematic review paper identified six main uses of Twitter for public health: analysis of shared content, surveillance of public health topics or diseases, public engagement, recruitment of research participants, Twitter-based public health interventions, and network analysis of Twitter users [9]....
[...]
...A number of studies have shown that social media can play an important role as a source of data for detecting outbreaks but also in understanding public attitudes and behaviors during a crisis as a way to support crisis communication and health promotion messaging [7-11]....
[...]
01 Mar 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identified five broad public health themes concerning the role of online social media platforms and COVID-19, focusing on: surveying public attitudes, identifying infodemics, assessing mental health, detecting or predicting COVID19 cases, analysing government responses to the pandemic, and evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos.
Abstract: With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has rapidly become a crucial communication tool for information generation, dissemination, and consumption. In this scoping review, we selected and examined peer-reviewed empirical studies relating to COVID-19 and social media during the first outbreak from November, 2019, to November, 2020. From an analysis of 81 studies, we identified five overarching public health themes concerning the role of online social media platforms and COVID-19. These themes focused on: surveying public attitudes, identifying infodemics, assessing mental health, detecting or predicting COVID-19 cases, analysing government responses to the pandemic, and evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos. Furthermore, our Review emphasises the paucity of studies on the application of machine learning on data from COVID-19-related social media and a scarcity of studies documenting real-time surveillance that was developed with data from social media on COVID-19. For COVID-19, social media can have a crucial role in disseminating health information and tackling infodemics and misinformation.
377 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identified five overarching public health themes concerning the role of online social platforms and COVID-19 pandemic, including surveying public attitudes, identifying infodemics, assessing mental health, detecting or predicting COVID19 cases, and evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos.
Abstract: With the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, social media has rapidly become a crucial communication tool for information generation, dissemination, and consumption. In this scoping review, we selected and examined peer-reviewed empirical studies relating to COVID-19 and social media during the first outbreak starting in November 2019 until May 2020. From an analysis of 81 studies, we identified five overarching public health themes concerning the role of online social platforms and COVID-19. These themes focused on: (i) surveying public attitudes, (ii) identifying infodemics, (iii) assessing mental health, (iv) detecting or predicting COVID-19 cases, (v) analyzing government responses to the pandemic, and (vi) evaluating quality of health information in prevention education videos. Furthermore, our review highlights the paucity of studies on the application of machine learning on social media data related to COVID-19 and a lack of studies documenting real-time surveillance developed with social media data on COVID-19. For COVID-19, social media can play a crucial role in disseminating health information as well as tackling infodemics and misinformation.
258 citations
TL;DR: A systematic review of social media uses for health purposes that have been identified in previous studies is presented in this paper, where the authors search for peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2006 and 2020 in 12 databases covering medicine, public health, and social science.
Abstract: Background: Social media has been widely used for health-related purposes, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous reviews have summarized social media uses for a specific health purpose such as health interventions, health campaigns, medical education, and disease outbreak surveillance. The most recent comprehensive review of social media uses for health purposes, however, was conducted in 2013. A systematic review that covers various health purposes is needed to reveal the new usages and research gaps that emerge in recent years.
Objective: This study aimed to provide a systematic review of social media uses for health purposes that have been identified in previous studies.
Methods: The researchers searched for peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2006 and 2020 in 12 databases covering medicine, public health, and social science. After coding the articles in terms of publication year, journal area, country, method, social media platform, and social media use for health purposes, the researchers provided a review of social media use for health purposes identified in these articles.
Results: This study summarized 10 social media uses for various health purposes by health institutions, health researchers and practitioners, and the public.
Conclusions: Social media can be used for various health purposes. Several new usages have emerged since 2013 including advancing health research and practice, social mobilization, and facilitating offline health-related services and events. Research gaps exist regarding advancing strategic use of social media based on audience segmentation, evaluating the impact of social media in health interventions, understanding the impact of health identity development, and addressing privacy concerns.
146 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the reasons why people in Canada feel hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and found that only about 75% of those who planned to receive one of the vaccines in Canada plan to receive it.
Abstract: Background: With the approval of two COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, many people feel a sense of relief, as hope is on the horizon. However, only about 75% of people in Canada plan to receive one of the vaccines.
Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the reasons why people in Canada feel hesitant toward receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.
Methods: We screened 3915 tweets from public Twitter profiles in Canada by using the search words “vaccine” and “COVID.” The tweets that met the inclusion criteria (ie, those about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy) were coded via content analysis. Codes were then organized into themes and interpreted by using the Theoretical Domains Framework.
Results: Overall, 605 tweets were identified as those about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy stemmed from the following themes: concerns over safety, suspicion about political or economic forces driving the COVID-19 pandemic or vaccine development, a lack of knowledge about the vaccine, antivaccine or confusing messages from authority figures, and a lack of legal liability from vaccine companies. This study also examined mistrust toward the medical industry not due to hesitancy, but due to the legacy of communities marginalized by health care institutions. These themes were categorized into the following five Theoretical Domains Framework constructs: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, environmental context and resources, social influence, and emotion.
Conclusions: With the World Health Organization stating that one of the worst threats to global health is vaccine hesitancy, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the reasons behind this reluctance. By using a behavioral science framework, this study adds to the emerging knowledge about vaccine hesitancy in relation to COVID-19 vaccines by analyzing public discourse in tweets in real time. Health care leaders and clinicians may use this knowledge to develop public health interventions that are responsive to the concerns of people who are hesitant to receive vaccines.
142 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: Moher et al. as mentioned in this paper introduce PRISMA, an update of the QUOROM guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which is used in this paper.
Abstract: David Moher and colleagues introduce PRISMA, an update of the QUOROM guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses
62,157 citations
TL;DR: A structured summary is provided including, as applicable, background, objectives, data sources, study eligibility criteria, participants, interventions, study appraisal and synthesis methods, results, limitations, conclusions and implications of key findings.
31,379 citations
TL;DR: PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is introduced, an update of the QUOROM guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
Abstract: Moher and colleagues introduce PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses), an update of the QUOROM guidelines for reporting systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Us...
23,203 citations
TL;DR: Mozaffarian, Dariush, Benjamin, Emelia J; Go, Alan S; Arnett, Donna K; Blaha, Michael J; Cushman, Mary; de Ferranti, Sarah; Despres, Jean-Pierre; Fullerton, Heather J; Howard, Virginia J; Huffman, Mark D; Judd, Suzanne E; Kissela, Brett M; Lackland, Daniel T; Lichtman, Judith H; Lisabeth, Lynda D; Liu, Simin; Mackey, Rachel H; Matchar, David B
Abstract: Author(s): Mozaffarian, Dariush; Benjamin, Emelia J; Go, Alan S; Arnett, Donna K; Blaha, Michael J; Cushman, Mary; de Ferranti, Sarah; Despres, Jean-Pierre; Fullerton, Heather J; Howard, Virginia J; Huffman, Mark D; Judd, Suzanne E; Kissela, Brett M; Lackland, Daniel T; Lichtman, Judith H; Lisabeth, Lynda D; Liu, Simin; Mackey, Rachel H; Matchar, David B; McGuire, Darren K; Mohler, Emile R; Moy, Claudia S; Muntner, Paul; Mussolino, Michael E; Nasir, Khurram; Neumar, Robert W; Nichol, Graham; Palaniappan, Latha; Pandey, Dilip K; Reeves, Mathew J; Rodriguez, Carlos J; Sorlie, Paul D; Stein, Joel; Towfighi, Amytis; Turan, Tanya N; Virani, Salim S; Willey, Joshua Z; Woo, Daniel; Yeh, Robert W; Turner, Melanie B; American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee
5,076 citations
TL;DR: The present review provides a framework for the development of a science of Internet-based interventions and provides a rationale for investing in more intensive theory- based interventions that incorporate multiple behavior change techniques and modes of delivery.
Abstract: Background: The Internet is increasingly used as a medium for the delivery of interventions designed to promote health behavior change. However, reviews of these interventions to date have not systematically identified intervention characteristics and linked these to effectiveness. Objectives: The present review sought to capitalize on recently published coding frames for assessing use of theory and behavior change techniques to investigate which characteristics of Internet-based interventions best promote health behavior change. In addition, we wanted to develop a novel coding scheme for assessing mode of delivery in Internet-based interventions and also to link different modes to effect sizes. Methods: We conducted a computerized search of the databases indexed by ISI Web of Knowledge (including BIOSIS Previews and Medline) between 2000 and 2008. Studies were included if (1) the primary components of the intervention were delivered via the Internet, (2) participants were randomly assigned to conditions, and (3) a measure of behavior related to health was taken after the intervention. Results: We found 85 studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria, providing a total sample size of 43,236 participants. On average, interventions had a statistically small but significant effect on health-related behavior (d+ = 0.16, 95% CI 0.09-0.23). More extensive use of theory was associated with increases in effect size (P = .049), and, in particular, interventions based on the theory of planned behavior tended to have substantial effects on behavior (d+ = 0.36, 95% CI 0.15-0.56). Interventions that incorporated more behavior change techniques also tended to have larger effects compared to interventions that incorporated fewer techniques (P < .001). Finally, the effectiveness of Internet-based interventions was enhanced by the use of additional methods of communicating with participants, especially the use of short message service (SMS), or text, messages. Conclusions: The review provides a framework for the development of a science of Internet-based interventions, and our findings provide a rationale for investing in more intensive theory-based interventions that incorporate multiple behavior change techniques and modes of delivery. [J Med Internet Res 2010;12(1):e4]
2,224 citations