Md Mohiuddin Adnan1, Jingjing Yin1, Ashley M Jackson1, Zion Tsz Ho Tse2, Hai Liang3, King-Wa Fu4,5, Nitin Saroha6, Benjamin M Althouse7,8,9, Isaac Chun-Hai Fung1. 1. Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA. 2. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. 3. School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 4. Journalism and Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. 5. MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. 6. Department of Computer Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. 7. Institute for Disease Modeling, Bellevue, WA, USA. 8. Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. 9. New Mexico State University, Las Cruses, NM, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Twitter is used for World Pneumonia Day (WPD; November 12) communication. We evaluate if themes of #pneumonia tweets were associated with retweet frequency. METHODS: A total of 28 181 original #pneumonia tweets were retrieved (21 November 2016), from which six subcorpora, 1 mo before and 1 mo after WPD 2011-2016, were extracted (n=6721). Underlying topics were identified via latent Dirichlet allocation and were manually coded into themes. The association of themes with retweet count was assessed via multivariable hurdle regression. RESULTS: Compared with personal experience tweets, tweets that both raised awareness and promoted intervention were 2.62 times as likely to be retweeted (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.62 [95% 1.79 to 3.85]) and if retweeted had 37% more retweets (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 1.37 [95% CI 1.06 to 1.78]). Tweets that raised concerns about vaccine price were twice as likely to be retweeted (aOR 2.29 [95% CI 1.36 to 3.84]) and if retweeted, had double the retweet count (aPR 2.05 [95% CI 1.27 to 3.29]) of tweets sharing personal experience. CONCLUSIONS: The #pneumonia tweets that both raised awareness and promoted interventions and those discussing vaccine price were more likely to engage users than tweets about personal experience. These results help health professionals craft WPD messages that will engage the audience.
BACKGROUND: Twitter is used for World Pneumonia Day (WPD; November 12) communication. We evaluate if themes of #pneumoniatweets were associated with retweet frequency. METHODS: A total of 28 181 original #pneumoniatweets were retrieved (21 November 2016), from which six subcorpora, 1 mo before and 1 mo after WPD 2011-2016, were extracted (n=6721). Underlying topics were identified via latent Dirichlet allocation and were manually coded into themes. The association of themes with retweet count was assessed via multivariable hurdle regression. RESULTS: Compared with personal experience tweets, tweets that both raised awareness and promoted intervention were 2.62 times as likely to be retweeted (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.62 [95% 1.79 to 3.85]) and if retweeted had 37% more retweets (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 1.37 [95% CI 1.06 to 1.78]). Tweets that raised concerns about vaccine price were twice as likely to be retweeted (aOR 2.29 [95% CI 1.36 to 3.84]) and if retweeted, had double the retweet count (aPR 2.05 [95% CI 1.27 to 3.29]) of tweets sharing personal experience. CONCLUSIONS: The #pneumoniatweets that both raised awareness and promoted interventions and those discussing vaccine price were more likely to engage users than tweets about personal experience. These results help health professionals craft WPD messages that will engage the audience.