Dataset Information

Geographic Differences in Cannabis Conversations on Twitter: Infodemiology Study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Infodemiology is an emerging field of research that utilizes user-generated health-related content, such as that found in social media, to help improve public health. Twitter has become an important venue for studying emerging patterns in health issues such as substance use because it can reflect trends in real-time and display messages generated directly by users, giving a uniquely personal voice to analyses. Over the past year, several states in the United States have passed legislation to legalize adult recreational use of cannabis and the federal government in Canada has done the same. There are few studies that examine the sentiment and content of tweets about cannabis since the recent legislative changes regarding cannabis have occurred in North America. OBJECTIVE:To examine differences in the sentiment and content of cannabis-related tweets by state cannabis laws, and to examine differences in sentiment between the United States and Canada between 2017 and 2019. METHODS:In total, 1,200,127 cannabis-related tweets were collected from January 1, 2017, to June 17, 2019, using the Twitter application programming interface. Tweets then were grouped geographically based on cannabis legal status (legal for adult recreational use, legal for medical use, and no legal use) in the locations from which the tweets came. Sentiment scoring for the tweets was done with VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner), and differences in sentiment for states with different cannabis laws were tested using Tukey adjusted two-sided pairwise comparisons. Topic analysis to determine the content of tweets was done using latent Dirichlet allocation in Python, using a Java implementation, LdaMallet, with Gensim wrapper. RESULTS:Significant differences were seen in tweet sentiment between US states with different cannabis laws (P=.001 for negative sentiment tweets in fully illegal compared to legal for adult recreational use states), as well as between the United States and Canada (P=.003 for positive sentiment and P=.001 for negative sentiment). In both cases, restrictive state policy environments (eg, those where cannabis use is fully illegal, or legal for medical use only) were associated with more negative tweet sentiment than less restrictive policy environments (eg, where cannabis is legal for adult recreational use). Six key topics were found in recent US tweet contents: fun and recreation (keywords, eg, love, life, high); daily life (today, start, live); transactions (buy, sell, money); places of use (room, car, house); medical use and cannabis industry (business, industry, company); and legalization (legalize, police, tax). The keywords representing content of tweets also differed between the United States and Canada. CONCLUSIONS:Knowledge about how cannabis is being discussed online, and geographic differences that exist in these conversations may help to inform public health planning and prevention efforts. Public health education about how to use cannabis in ways that promote safety and minimize harms may be especially important in places where cannabis is legal for adult recreational and medical use.

SUBMITTER: van Draanen J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7573699 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Geographic Differences in Cannabis Conversations on Twitter: Infodemiology Study.

van Draanen Jenna J Tao HaoDong H Gupta Saksham S Liu Sam S

JMIR public health and surveillance 20201005 4

<h4>Background</h4>Infodemiology is an emerging field of research that utilizes user-generated health-related content, such as that found in social media, to help improve public health. Twitter has become an important venue for studying emerging patterns in health issues such as substance use because it can reflect trends in real-time and display messages generated directly by users, giving a uniquely personal voice to analyses. Over the past year, several states in the United States have passed ...[more]

PMID: 33016888

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Project description:BackgroundSocial media technology such as Twitter allows users to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions online. The growing body of social media data is becoming a central part of infodemiology research as these data can be combined with other public health datasets (eg, physical activity levels) to provide real-time monitoring of psychological and behavior outcomes that inform health behaviors. Currently, it is unclear whether Twitter data can be used to monitor physical activity levels.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to establish the feasibility of using Twitter data to monitor physical activity levels by assessing whether the frequency and sentiment of physical activity-related tweets were associated with physical activity levels across the United States.MethodsTweets were collected from Twitter's application programming interface (API) between January 10, 2017 and January 2, 2018. We used Twitter's garden hose method of collecting tweets, which provided a random sample of approximately 1% of all tweets with location metadata falling within the United States. Geotagged tweets were filtered. A list of physical activity-related hashtags was collected and used to further classify these geolocated tweets. Twitter data were merged with physical activity data collected as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Multiple linear regression models were fit to assess the relationship between physical activity-related tweets and physical activity levels by county while controlling for population and socioeconomic status measures.ResultsDuring the study period, 442,959,789 unique tweets were collected, of which 64,005,336 (14.44%) were geotagged with latitude and longitude coordinates. Aggregated data were obtained for a total of 3138 counties in the United States. The mean county-level percentage of physically active individuals was 74.05% (SD 5.2) and 75.30% (SD 4.96) after adjusting for age. The model showed that the percentage of physical activity-related tweets was significantly associated with physical activity levels (beta=.11; SE 0.2; P<.001) and age-adjusted physical activity (beta=.10; SE 0.20; P<.001) on a county level while adjusting for both Gini index and education level. However, the overall explained variance of the model was low (R2=.11). The sentiment of the physical activity-related tweets was not a significant predictor of physical activity level and age-adjusted physical activity on a county level after including the Gini index and education level in the model (P>.05).ConclusionsSocial media data may be a valuable tool for public health organizations to monitor physical activity levels, as it can overcome the time lag in the reporting of physical activity epidemiology data faced by traditional research methods (eg, surveys and observational studies). Consequently, this tool may have the potential to help public health organizations better mobilize and target physical activity interventions.

Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a rapid shift in how individuals interact with and receive fundamental services, including health care. Although telemedicine is not a novel technology, previous studies have offered mixed opinions surrounding its utilization. However, there exists a dearth of research on how these opinions have evolved over the course of the current pandemic.ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate how the language and sentiment surrounding telemedicine has evolved throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsTweets published between January 1, 2020, and April 24, 2021, containing at least one telemedicine-related and one COVID-19-related search term ("telemedicine-COVID") were collected from the Twitter full archive search (N=351,718). A comparator sample containing only COVID-19 terms ("general-COVID") was collected and sampled based on the daily distribution of telemedicine-COVID tweets. In addition to analyses of retweets and favorites, sentiment analysis was performed on both data sets in aggregate and within a subset of tweets receiving the top 100 most and least retweets.ResultsTelemedicine gained prominence during the early stages of the pandemic (ie, March through May 2020) before leveling off and reaching a steady state from June 2020 onward. Telemedicine-COVID tweets had a 21% lower average number of retweets than general-COVID tweets (incidence rate ratio 0.79, 95% CI 0.63-0.99; P=.04), but there was no difference in favorites. A majority of telemedicine-COVID tweets (180,295/351,718, 51.3%) were characterized as "positive," compared to only 38.5% (135,434/351,401) of general-COVID tweets (P<.001). This trend was also true on a monthly level from March 2020 through April 2021. The most retweeted posts in both telemedicine-COVID and general-COVID data sets were authored by journalists and politicians. Whereas the majority of the most retweeted posts within the telemedicine-COVID data set were positive (55/101, 54.5%), a plurality of the most retweeted posts within the general-COVID data set were negative (44/89, 49.4%; P=.01).ConclusionsDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, opinions surrounding telemedicine evolved to become more positive, especially when compared to the larger pool of COVID-19-related tweets. Decision makers should capitalize on these shifting public opinions to invest in telemedicine infrastructure and ensure its accessibility and success in a postpandemic world.

Project description:BACKGROUND:SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2) was spreading rapidly in South Korea at the end of February 2020 following its initial outbreak in China, making Korea the new center of global attention. The role of social media amid the current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has often been criticized, but little systematic research has been conducted on this issue. Social media functions as a convenient source of information in pandemic situations. OBJECTIVE:Few infodemiology studies have applied network analysis in conjunction with content analysis. This study investigates information transmission networks and news-sharing behaviors regarding COVID-19 on Twitter in Korea. The real time aggregation of social media data can serve as a starting point for designing strategic messages for health campaigns and establishing an effective communication system during this outbreak. METHODS:Korean COVID-19-related Twitter data were collected on February 29, 2020. Our final sample comprised of 43,832 users and 78,233 relationships on Twitter. We generated four networks in terms of key issues regarding COVID-19 in Korea. This study comparatively investigates how COVID-19-related issues have circulated on Twitter through network analysis. Next, we classified top news channels shared via tweets. Lastly, we conducted a content analysis of news frames used in the top-shared sources. RESULTS:The network analysis suggests that the spread of information was faster in the Coronavirus network than in the other networks (Corona19, Shincheon, and Daegu). People who used the word "Coronavirus" communicated more frequently with each other. The spread of information was faster, and the diameter value was lower than for those who used other terms. Many of the news items highlighted the positive roles being played by individuals and groups, directing readers' attention to the crisis. Ethical issues such as deviant behavior among the population and an entertainment frame highlighting celebrity donations also emerged often. There was a significant difference in the use of nonportal (n=14) and portal news (n=26) sites between the four network types. The news frames used in the top sources were similar across the networks (P=.89, 95% CI 0.004-0.006). Tweets containing medically framed news articles (mean 7.571, SD 1.988) were found to be more popular than tweets that included news articles adopting nonmedical frames (mean 5.060, SD 2.904; N=40, P=.03, 95% CI 0.169-4.852). CONCLUSIONS:Most of the popular news on Twitter had nonmedical frames. Nevertheless, the spillover effect of the news articles that delivered medical information about COVID-19 was greater than that of news with nonmedical frames. Social media network analytics cannot replace the work of public health officials; however, monitoring public conversations and media news that propagates rapidly can assist public health professionals in their complex and fast-paced decision-making processes.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Social networks such as Twitter offer the clinical research community a novel opportunity for engaging potential study participants based on user activity data. However, the availability of public social media data has led to new ethical challenges about respecting user privacy and the appropriateness of monitoring social media for clinical trial recruitment. Researchers have voiced the need for involving users' perspectives in the development of ethical norms and regulations. OBJECTIVE:This study examined the attitudes and level of concern among Twitter users and nonusers about using Twitter for monitoring social media users and their conversations to recruit potential clinical trial participants. METHODS:We used two online methods for recruiting study participants: the open survey was (1) advertised on Twitter between May 23 and June 8, 2017, and (2) deployed on TurkPrime, a crowdsourcing data acquisition platform, between May 23 and June 8, 2017. Eligible participants were adults, 18 years of age or older, who lived in the United States. People with and without Twitter accounts were included in the study. RESULTS:While nearly half the respondents-on Twitter (94/603, 15.6%) and on TurkPrime (509/603, 84.4%)-indicated agreement that social media monitoring constitutes a form of eavesdropping that invades their privacy, over one-third disagreed and nearly 1 in 5 had no opinion. A chi-square test revealed a positive relationship between respondents' general privacy concern and their average concern about Internet research (P<.005). We found associations between respondents' Twitter literacy and their concerns about the ability for researchers to monitor their Twitter activity for clinical trial recruitment (P=.001) and whether they consider Twitter monitoring for clinical trial recruitment as eavesdropping (P<.001) and an invasion of privacy (P=.003). As Twitter literacy increased, so did people's concerns about researchers monitoring Twitter activity. Our data support the previously suggested use of the nonexceptionalist methodology for assessing social media in research, insofar as social media-based recruitment does not need to be considered exceptional and, for most, it is considered preferable to traditional in-person interventions at physical clinics. The expressed attitudes were highly contextual, depending on factors such as the type of disease or health topic (eg, HIV/AIDS vs obesity vs smoking), the entity or person monitoring users on Twitter, and the monitored information. CONCLUSIONS:The data and findings from this study contribute to the critical dialogue with the public about the use of social media in clinical research. The findings suggest that most users do not think that monitoring Twitter for clinical trial recruitment constitutes inappropriate surveillance or a violation of privacy. However, researchers should remain mindful that some participants might find social media monitoring problematic when connected with certain conditions or health topics. Further research should isolate factors that influence the level of concern among social media users across platforms and populations and inform the development of more clear and consistent guidelines.

Project description:BackgroundSocial media is a rich source where we can learn about people's reactions to social issues. As COVID-19 has impacted people's lives, it is essential to capture how people react to public health interventions and understand their concerns.ObjectiveWe aim to investigate people's reactions and concerns about COVID-19 in North America, especially in Canada.MethodsWe analyzed COVID-19-related tweets using topic modeling and aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), and interpreted the results with public health experts. To generate insights on the effectiveness of specific public health interventions for COVID-19, we compared timelines of topics discussed with the timing of implementation of interventions, synergistically including information on people's sentiment about COVID-19-related aspects in our analysis. In addition, to further investigate anti-Asian racism, we compared timelines of sentiments for Asians and Canadians.ResultsTopic modeling identified 20 topics, and public health experts provided interpretations of the topics based on top-ranked words and representative tweets for each topic. The interpretation and timeline analysis showed that the discovered topics and their trend are highly related to public health promotions and interventions such as physical distancing, border restrictions, handwashing, staying home, and face coverings. After training the data using ABSA with human-in-the-loop, we obtained 545 aspect terms (eg, "vaccines," "economy," and "masks") and 60 opinion terms such as "infectious" (negative) and "professional" (positive), which were used for inference of sentiments of 20 key aspects selected by public health experts. The results showed negative sentiments related to the overall outbreak, misinformation and Asians, and positive sentiments related to physical distancing.ConclusionsAnalyses using natural language processing techniques with domain expert involvement can produce useful information for public health. This study is the first to analyze COVID-19-related tweets in Canada in comparison with tweets in the United States by using topic modeling and human-in-the-loop domain-specific ABSA. This kind of information could help public health agencies to understand public concerns as well as what public health messages are resonating in our populations who use Twitter, which can be helpful for public health agencies when designing a policy for new interventions.

Dataset Information

Geographic Differences in Cannabis Conversations on Twitter: Infodemiology Study.

Publications

Geographic Differences in Cannabis Conversations on Twitter: Infodemiology Study.

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