Using social media for actionable disease surveillance and outbreak management. A systematic literature review

Journal Article · Mon Oct 05 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · PLoS ONE

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139701· OSTI ID:1229934

Charles-Smith, Lauren E. ^[1]; Reynolds, Tera L. ^[2]; Cameron, Mark A. ^[3]; Conway, Mike ^[4]; Lau, Eric H. Y. ^[5]; Olsen, Jennifer M. ^[6]; Pavlin, Julie A. ^[7]; Shigematsu, Mika ^[8]; Streichert, Laura C. ^[2]; Suda, Katie J. ^[9]; Corley, Courtney D. ^[1]; Braunstein, Lidia Adriana ^[10]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
2. International Society for Disease Surveillance, Boston, MA (United States)
3. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Digital Productivity Flagship, Canberra (Australia)
4. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
5. The Univ. of Hong Kong (People's Republic of China)
6. Skoll Global Threats Fund, San Francisco, CA (United States)
7. Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD (United States)
8. National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo (Japan)
9. United States Dept. of Veteran Affairs, Hines, IL (United States)
10. IFIMAR, Conicet (Argentina)

Here, research studies show that social media may be valuable tools in the disease surveillance toolkit used for improving public health professionals’ ability to detect disease outbreaks faster than traditional methods and to enhance outbreak response. A social media work group, consisting of surveillance practitioners, academic researchers, and other subject matter experts convened by the International Society for Disease Surveillance, conducted a systematic primary literature review using the PRISMA framework to identify research, published through February 2013, answering either of the following questions: 1) Can social media be integrated into disease surveillance practice and outbreak management to support and improve public health? 2) Can social media be used to effectively target populations, specifically vulnerable populations, to test an intervention and interact with a community to improve health outcomes? Examples of social media included are Facebook, MySpace, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), blogs, and discussion forums. For Question 1, 33 manuscripts were identified, starting in 2009 with topics on Influenza-like Illnesses (n=15), Infectious Diseases (n = 6), Non-infectious Diseases (n=4), Medication and Vaccines (n=3), and Other (n=5). For Question 2, 32 manuscripts were identified, the first in 2000 with topics on Health Risk Behaviors (n=10), Infectious Diseases (n = 3), Non-infectious Diseases (n=9), and Other (n=10). The literature on the use of social media to support public health practice has identified many gaps and biases in current knowledge. Despite the potential for success identified in exploratory studies, there are limited studies on interventions and little use of social media in practice. However, information gleaned from the articles demonstrates the effectiveness of social media in supporting and improving public health and in identifying target populations for intervention. A primary recommendation resulting from the review is to identify opportunities that enable public health professionals to integrate social media analytics into disease surveillance and outbreak management practice.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1229934
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-110428
• Journal Information: PLoS ONE, Vol. 10, Issue 10; ISSN 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
social media
twitter
public and occupational health
disease surveillance
North America
influenza
swine influenza
behavioral and social aspects of health