Dataset Information

Who Are the Most Influential Emergency Physicians on Twitter?

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Twitter has recently gained popularity in emergency medicine (EM). Opinion leaders on Twitter have significant influence on the conversation and content, yet little is known about these opinion leaders. We aimed to describe a methodology to identify the most influential emergency physicians (EP) on Twitter and present a current list.

Methods

We analyzed 2,234 English-language EPs on Twitter from a previously published list of Twitter accounts generated by a snowball sampling technique. Using NodeXL software, we performed a network analysis of these EPs and ranked them on three measures of influence: in-degree centrality, eigenvector centrality, and betweenness centrality. We analyzed the top 100 users in each of these three measures of influence and compiled a list of users found in the top 100 in all three measures.

Results

Of the 300 total users identified by one of the measures of influence, there were 142 unique users. Of the 142 unique users, 61 users were in the top 100 on all three measures of influence. We identify these 61 users as the most influential EM Twitter users.

Conclusion

We both describe a method for identifying the most influential users and provide a list of the 61 most influential EPs on Twitter as of January 1, 2016. This application of network science to the EM Twitter community can guide future research to better understand the networked global community of EM.

SUBMITTER: Riddell J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5305138 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Who Are the Most Influential Emergency Physicians on Twitter?

Riddell Jeff J Brown Alisha A Kovic Ivor I Jauregui Joshua J

The western journal of emergency medicine 20170119 2

<h4>Introduction</h4>Twitter has recently gained popularity in emergency medicine (EM). Opinion leaders on Twitter have significant influence on the conversation and content, yet little is known about these opinion leaders. We aimed to describe a methodology to identify the most influential emergency physicians (EP) on Twitter and present a current list.<h4>Methods</h4>We analyzed 2,234 English-language EPs on Twitter from a previously published list of Twitter accounts generated by a snowball s ...[more]

PMID: 28210365

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Project description:BackgroundPhysicians are increasingly using Twitter as a channel for communicating with colleagues and the public. Identifying physicians on Twitter is difficult due to the varied and imprecise ways that people self-identify themselves on the social media platform. This is the first study to describe a reliable, repeatable methodology for identifying physicians on Twitter. By using this approach, we characterized the longitudinal activity of US physicians on Twitter.ObjectiveWe aimed to develop a reliable and repeatable methodology for identifying US physicians on Twitter and to characterize their activity on Twitter over 5 years by activity, tweeted topic, and account type.MethodsIn this study, 5 years of Twitter data (2016-2020) were mined for physician accounts. US physicians on Twitter were identified by using a custom-built algorithm to screen for physician identifiers in the Twitter handles, user profiles, and tweeted content. The number of tweets by physician accounts from the 5-year period were counted and analyzed. The top 100 hashtags were identified, categorized into topics, and analyzed.ResultsApproximately 1 trillion tweets were mined to identify 6,399,146 (<0.001%) tweets originating from 39,084 US physician accounts. Over the 5-year period, the number of US physicians tweeting more than doubled (ie, increased by 112%). Across all 5 years, the most popular themes were general health, medical education, and mental health, and in specific years, the number of tweets related to elections (2016 and 2020), Black Lives Matter (2020), and COVID-19 (2020) increased.ConclusionsTwitter has become an increasingly popular social media platform for US physicians over the past 5 years, and their use of Twitter has evolved to cover a broad range of topics, including science, politics, social activism, and COVID-19. We have developed an accurate, repeatable methodology for identifying US physicians on Twitter and have characterized their activity.

Dataset Information

Who Are the Most Influential Emergency Physicians on Twitter?

Introduction

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Who Are the Most Influential Emergency Physicians on Twitter?

Similar Datasets

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