Twitter as a source of vaccination information: Content drivers and what they are saying

Background: Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms. The growing use of Twitter by health-care consumers creates a novel venue to understand patient experiences. To understand the potential for this platform to be utilized in patient-and family-oriented health research, this study reviewed published literature on the use of Twitter in health research. Methods: In collaboration with the research team, a research librarian designed and implemented a search strategy in eight databases. Primary and secondary screenings were conducted using predetermined criteria by one reviewer. A second reviewer verified screening decisions in 10% of the studies. Evidence tables were created to synthesize across the following study elements: research design, data collection techniques, analytic approaches, and author's insights on Twitter as a data collection method. Descriptive narrative analysis was used to synthesize data. Results: The search strategy captured 618 articles; 233 were eliminated in primary screening and 366 articles were eliminated during secondary screening. Verification by the second reviewer resulted in very good agreement (k ¼ .980). Seventeen articles were included in the final data set. Synthesis across the studies demonstrated that Twitter is currently used to search and mine research data, while active recruitment strategies on Twitter are just beginning to emerge. Conclusion: The novelty of Twitter for study recruitment and data collection with health-care consumers presents advantages and challenges that differ from traditional methods of data collection.

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“…Himelboim, Holton, & Stewart, 2013;Nagel et al, 2013). One study examined tweets about vaccinations (Love et al, 2013).…”

Section: International Journal Of Qualitative Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One study examined tweets about vaccinations (Love et al, 2013). The second study examined interaction between cyberspace messages and real-world occurrences of influenza and pertussis (Nagel et al, 2013).…”

Section: International Journal Of Qualitative Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Twitter for Data Collection With Health-Care Consumers

Zhang

Albrecht

Scott

2018

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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“…First, the paper provides an example of a recent case study in which the responsibility for informing the public was less clear, compared to regular (health) pandemics. In health pandemics, the drivers of information are news sources and health authorities (Love et al, 2013). At present it is not clear who drives information in the context of a security threat.…”

Section: Contributions To Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The advantage of social media is that it allows rapid dissemination of official advice (e.g., in the form of tweets and retweets (RTs) on Twitter; see also Li and Li, 2014) to various stakeholders (e.g., Pang et al, 2014) via a large network of people who can continue to share the information, thus reaching a broad audience (i.e., a snowball effect). Such awareness campaigns have provided researchers with a wealth of data relating to a wide range of issues such as flu trends, vaccination attitudes and psychological wellbeing (Achrekar et al, 2011;Anger and Kittl, 2011;Byun et al, 2013;De Choudhury, 2014;Kim et al, 2009;Love et al, 2013; see also Vargo et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security information sharing via Twitter: 'Heartbleed' as a case study

Jeske

McNeill

Coventry

et al. 2017

IJWBC

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Abstract:The current paper outlines an exploratory case study in which we examined the extent to which specific communities of Twitter users engaged with the debate about the security threat known as 'Heartbleed' in the first few days after this threat was exposed. The case study explored which professional groups appeared to lead the debate about Heartbleed, the nature of the communication (tweets and retweets), and evidence about behaviour change. Using keywords from the Twitter user profiles, six occupational groups were identified, each of which were likely to have a direct interest in learning about Heartbleed (including legal, financial, entrepreneurial, press, and IT professionals). The groups participated to different degrees in the debate about Heartbleed. This exploratory case study provides an insight into information sharing, potential communities of influence, and points for future research in the absence of a voice of authority in the field of cybersecurity.Keywords: Heartbleed; tweet content; influence; behavioural change. Pam Briggs holds a Chair in Applied Psychology (PaCT Lab, Northumbria University), delivering innovative research and consultancy around issues of identity, trust and security in new social media. Her research interests include understanding personal information disclosure, trust in electronic media, and online privacy.

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“…In recent years, different studies analyzed the spread of pro-eating disorders groups on Internet [14-Recent studies investigated the role of Twitter as a source of health information [30], focusing on different topics such as antibiotics use [30], vaccinations [31] and chronic diseases [32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risks and threats of social media websites: Twitter and the pro-Ana movement

Camussi

Bert

Gualano

et al. 2015

European Journal of Public Health

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1 Questa è la versione pre-print (prima bozza) dell'articolo "Risks and threats of social media websites: Twitter and the pro-Ana movement" degli autori Bert F, Gualano MR, Camussi E, Siliquini R., pubblicato come Original Paper sulla rivista Cyberpsychology, behaviors and social networking. AcknoledgmentsThe authors declare that they have not received grants or funding for this work. Conflict of InterestThe authors declare that they have no competing interests. Background:In recent years,there was a spread of "pro-anorexia" websites.

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Twitter as a source of vaccination information: Content drivers and what they are saying

Cited by 146 publications

References 6 publications

Using Twitter for Data Collection With Health-Care Consumers

Using Twitter for Data Collection With Health-Care Consumers

Security information sharing via Twitter: 'Heartbleed' as a case study

Risks and threats of social media websites: Twitter and the pro-Ana movement

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