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Twitter and the health reforms in the English National Health Service

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  • King, Dominic
  • Ramirez-Cano, Daniel
  • Greaves, Felix
  • Vlaev, Ivo
  • Beales, Steve
  • Darzi, Ara

Abstract

Social media (for example Facebook and YouTube) uses online and mobile technologies to allow individuals to participate in, comment on and create user-generated content. Twitter is a widely used social media platform that lets users post short publicly available text-based messages called tweets that other users can respond to. Alongside traditional media outlets, Twitter has been a focus for discussions about the controversial and radical reforms to the National Health Service (NHS) in England that were recently passed into law by the current coalition Government. Looking at over 120,000 tweets made about the health reforms, we have investigated whether any insights can be obtained about the role of Twitter in informing, debating and influencing opinion in a specific area of health policy. In particular we have looked at how the sentiment of tweets changed with the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill through Parliament, and how this compared to conventional opinion polls taken over the same time period. We examine which users appeared to have the most influence in the ‘Twittersphere’ and suggest how a widely used metric of academic impact – the H-index – could be applied to measure context-dependent influence on Twitter.

Suggested Citation

  • King, Dominic & Ramirez-Cano, Daniel & Greaves, Felix & Vlaev, Ivo & Beales, Steve & Darzi, Ara, 2013. "Twitter and the health reforms in the English National Health Service," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(2), pages 291-297.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:110:y:2013:i:2:p:291-297
    DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2013.02.005
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Dolan, P. & Hallsworth, M. & Halpern, D. & King, D. & Metcalfe, R. & Vlaev, I., 2012. "Influencing behaviour: The mindspace way," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 264-277.
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    2. Paola Cerchiello & Paolo Giudici, 2014. "How to measure the quality of financial tweets," DEM Working Papers Series 069, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    3. Bornmann, Lutz, 2014. "Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 895-903.
    4. Nisar, Sobia & Shafiq, Muhammad, 2019. "Framework for efficient utilisation of social media in Pakistan's healthcare sector," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 31-43.
    5. Marco Palomino & Tim Taylor & Ayse Göker & John Isaacs & Sara Warber, 2016. "The Online Dissemination of Nature–Health Concepts: Lessons from Sentiment Analysis of Social Media Relating to “Nature-Deficit Disorder”," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-23, January.
    6. Louisa Walsh & Nerida Hyett & Nicole Juniper & Chi Li & Sophie Hill, 2022. "The Experiences of Stakeholders Using Social Media as a Tool for Health Service Design and Quality Improvement: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-29, November.
    7. Lopreite, Milena & Puliga, Michelangelo & Riccaboni, Massimo & De Rosis, Sabina, 2021. "A social network analysis of the organizations focusing on tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).

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