Detecting themes of public concern: A text mining analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Ebola live Twitter chat

Lazard, Allison J.; Scheinfeld, Emily; Bernhardt, Jay Michael; Wilcox, Gary B.; Suran, Melissa

doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2015.05.025

Cited by 147 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…When it comes to health communication, in particular [2], social media have been studied to support a broad spectrum of activities: predicting disease outbreaks by monitoring Twitter references to certain terms [3], devising effective communication campaigns [4,5], supporting behavior change interventions [6,7], and tracking the general public’s views on a variety of issues such as vaccination policies [8]. However, the tools for discerning patterns in these social media discussions pertaining to health are still in their formative stages [8-11]. In this paper, we present a study of the recent discourse in Twitter regarding the Zika outbreak to demonstrate the significance of three types of events: (1) geographical events capturing the evolution of the narrative over time and across locations, (2) social media presence events capturing the impact of and interactions over time among key actors, and (3) concept events that capture the emergence and evolution of key concepts that frame this narrative.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts

Stefanidis¹,

Vraga²,

Lamprianidis³

et al. 2017

JMIR Public Health Surveill

104

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BackgroundThe recent Zika outbreak witnessed the disease evolving from a regional health concern to a global epidemic. During this process, different communities across the globe became involved in Twitter, discussing the disease and key issues associated with it. This paper presents a study of this discussion in Twitter, at the nexus of location, actors, and concepts.ObjectiveOur objective in this study was to demonstrate the significance of 3 types of events: location related, actor related, and concept related, for understanding how a public health emergency of international concern plays out in social media, and Twitter in particular. Accordingly, the study contributes to research efforts toward gaining insights on the mechanisms that drive participation, contributions, and interaction in this social media platform during a disease outbreak.MethodsWe collected 6,249,626 tweets referring to the Zika outbreak over a period of 12 weeks early in the outbreak (December 2015 through March 2016). We analyzed this data corpus in terms of its geographical footprint, the actors participating in the discourse, and emerging concepts associated with the issue. Data were visualized and evaluated with spatiotemporal and network analysis tools to capture the evolution of interest on the topic and to reveal connections between locations, actors, and concepts in the form of interaction networks.ResultsThe spatiotemporal analysis of Twitter contributions reflects the spread of interest in Zika from its original hotspot in South America to North America and then across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization had a prominent presence in social media discussions. Tweets about pregnancy and abortion increased as more information about this emerging infectious disease was presented to the public and public figures became involved in this.ConclusionsThe results of this study show the utility of analyzing temporal variations in the analytic triad of locations, actors, and concepts. This contributes to advancing our understanding of social media discourse during a public health emergency of international concern.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts

Stefanidis¹,

Vraga²,

Lamprianidis³

et al. 2017

JMIR Public Health Surveill

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, social media can also be used to combat the spread of false information and ignite health advocacy campaigns 30. Many organisations have taken advantage of Twitter’s affordances by responding to questions and concerns raised by the public, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-hosted live Twitter chats responding to the public’s questions about Ebola16 and the Zika virus 31. To date, there is little evidence that individuals with an anti-electronic nicotine delivery systems stance or supporters of e-cigarette regulations have a large presence on social media discussions 32…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public reactions to e-cigarette regulations on Twitter: a text mining analysis

et al. 2017

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“…Social media have many advantages in comparison to mainstream media such as facilitating public participation in science and health communication [5, 28, 33, 50]. Also, as we have seen, social media hold the advantage of providing a platform for the public to debate, discuss, and voice their opinions and concerns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All social media materials – in other words the various Facebook groups – were thematically analyzed [46] by the first author for emerging themes. Themes were not identified in advance but rather derived from the data [28]. This qualitative technique of emerging themes is prominent in the social sciences, and leans on the ethnographic assumption that richness of data can be achieved by “letting the data speak for itself” [8, 11].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social media as a platform for health-related public debates and discussions: the Polio vaccine on Facebook

Orr

Baram‐Tsabari

Landsman

2016

Isr J Health Policy Res

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BackgroundSocial media can act as an important platform for debating, discussing, and disseminating information about vaccines. Our objectives were to map and describe the roles played by web-based mainstream media and social media as platforms for vaccination-related public debates and discussions during the Polio crisis in Israel in 2013: where and how did the public debate and discuss the issue, and how can these debates and discussions be characterized?MethodPolio-related coverage was collected from May 28 to October 31, 2013, from seven online Hebrew media platforms and the Facebook groups discussing the Polio vaccination were mapped and described. In addition, 2,289 items from the Facebook group “Parents talk about Polio vaccination” were analyzed for socio-demographic and thematic characteristics.ResultsThe traditional media mainly echoed formal voices from the Ministry of Health. The comments on the Facebook vaccination opposition groups could be divided into four groups: comments with individualistic perceptions, comments that expressed concerns about the safety of the OPV, comments that expressed distrust in the Ministry of Health, and comments denying Polio as a disease.In the Facebook group “Parents talk about the Polio vaccination”, an active group with various participants, 321 commentators submitted 2289 comments, with 64 % of the comments written by women. Most (92 %) people involved were parents. The comments were both personal (referring to specific situations) and general in nature (referring to symptoms or wide implications). A few (13 %) of the commentators were physicians (n = 44), who were responsible for 909 (40 %) of the items in the sample. Half the doctors and 6 % of the non-doctors wrote over 10 items each. This Facebook group formed a unique platform where unmediated debates and discussions between the public and medical experts took place.ConclusionThe comments on the social media, as well as the socio-demographic profiles of the commentators, suggest that social media is an active and versatile debate and discussion-facilitating platform in the context of vaccinations. This paper presents public voices, which should be seen as authentic (i.e. unmediated by the media or other political actors) and useful for policy making purposes. The policy implications include identifying social media as a main channel of communication during health crises, and acknowledging the voices heard on social media as authentic and useful for policy making. Human and financial resources need to be devolved specifically to social media. Health officials and experts need to be accessible on social media, and be equipped to readily provide the information, support and advice the public is looking for.

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Detecting themes of public concern: A text mining analysis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Ebola live Twitter chat

Cited by 147 publications

References 16 publications

Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts

Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts

Public reactions to e-cigarette regulations on Twitter: a text mining analysis

Social media as a platform for health-related public debates and discussions: the Polio vaccine on Facebook

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