Quynh C Nguyen1, Matt McCullough1, Hsien-Wen Meng1, Debjyoti Paul1, Dapeng Li1, Suraj Kath1, Geoffrey Loomis1, Elaine O Nsoesie1, Ming Wen1, Ken R Smith1, Feifei Li1. 1. Quynh C. Nguyen is with the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Maryland School of Public Health, College Park. Hsien-wen Meng and Geoffrey Loomis are with the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation; University of Utah College of Health; Salt Lake City. Matt McCullough and Dapeng Li are with the Department of Geography, University of Utah. Debjyoti Paul, Suraj Kath, and Feifei Li are with the School of Computing, University of Utah. Elaine O. Nsoesie is with Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle. Ming Wen is with the Department of Sociology, University of Utah. Ken R. Smith is with the Department of Family and Consumer Studies and Population Science, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To leverage geotagged Twitter data to create national indicators of the social environment, with small-area indicators of prevalent sentiment and social modeling of health behaviors, and to test associations with county-level health outcomes, while controlling for demographic characteristics. METHODS: We used Twitter's streaming application programming interface to continuously collect a random 1% subset of publicly available geo-located tweets in the contiguous United States. We collected approximately 80 million geotagged tweets from 603 363 unique Twitter users in a 12-month period (April 2015-March 2016). RESULTS: Across 3135 US counties, Twitter indicators of happiness, food, and physical activity were associated with lower premature mortality, obesity, and physical inactivity. Alcohol-use tweets predicted higher alcohol-use-related mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Social media represents a new type of real-time data that may enable public health officials to examine movement of norms, sentiment, and behaviors that may portend emerging issues or outbreaks-thus providing a way to intervene to prevent adverse health events and measure the impact of health interventions.
OBJECTIVES: To leverage geotagged Twitter data to create national indicators of the social environment, with small-area indicators of prevalent sentiment and social modeling of health behaviors, and to test associations with county-level health outcomes, while controlling for demographic characteristics. METHODS: We used Twitter's streaming application programming interface to continuously collect a random 1% subset of publicly available geo-located tweets in the contiguous United States. We collected approximately 80 million geotagged tweets from 603 363 unique Twitter users in a 12-month period (April 2015-March 2016). RESULTS: Across 3135 US counties, Twitter indicators of happiness, food, and physical activity were associated with lower premature mortality, obesity, and physical inactivity. Alcohol-use tweets predicted higher alcohol-use-related mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Social media represents a new type of real-time data that may enable public health officials to examine movement of norms, sentiment, and behaviors that may portend emerging issues or outbreaks-thus providing a way to intervene to prevent adverse health events and measure the impact of health interventions.
Authors: Barbara E Ainsworth; William L Haskell; Stephen D Herrmann; Nathanael Meckes; David R Bassett; Catrine Tudor-Locke; Jennifer L Greer; Jesse Vezina; Melicia C Whitt-Glover; Arthur S Leon Journal: Med Sci Sports Exerc Date: 2011-08 Impact factor: 5.411
Authors: Raphael W Bostic; Rachel L J Thornton; Elizabeth C Rudd; Michelle J Sternthal Journal: Health Aff (Millwood) Date: 2012-08-22 Impact factor: 6.301
Authors: A V Diez Roux; S S Merkin; D Arnett; L Chambless; M Massing; F J Nieto; P Sorlie; M Szklo; H A Tyroler; R L Watson Journal: N Engl J Med Date: 2001-07-12 Impact factor: 91.245
Authors: Jenine K Harris; Jared B Hawkins; Leila Nguyen; Elaine O Nsoesie; Gaurav Tuli; Raed Mansour; John S Brownstein Journal: J Public Health Manag Pract Date: 2017 Nov/Dec
Authors: Joseph J Deferio; Scott Breitinger; Dhruv Khullar; Amit Sheth; Jyotishman Pathak Journal: J Am Med Inform Assoc Date: 2019-08-01 Impact factor: 4.497
Authors: Kelly J Thomas Craig; Nicole Fusco; Thrudur Gunnarsdottir; Luc Chamberland; Jane L Snowdon; William J Kassler Journal: Online J Public Health Inform Date: 2021-12-24
Authors: Miguel A Alvarez-Mon; Cesar Ignacio Fernandez-Lazaro; Miguel A Ortega; Cristina Vidal; Rosa M Molina-Ruiz; Melchor Alvarez-Mon; Miguel A Martínez-González Journal: Front Psychiatry Date: 2022-05-18 Impact factor: 5.435
Authors: Christina Mair; Jessica Frankeberger; Paul J Gruenewald; Christopher N Morrison; Bridget Freisthler Journal: Curr Epidemiol Rep Date: 2019-09-13