IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/drugsa/v39y2016i5d10.1007_s40264-015-0385-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Media Listening for Routine Post-Marketing Safety Surveillance

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory E. Powell

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • Harry A. Seifert

    (GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines)

  • Tjark Reblin

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • Phil J. Burstein

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • James Blowers

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • J. Alan Menius

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • Jeffery L. Painter

    (GlaxoSmithKline)

  • Michele Thomas

    (Blue Zone Industries)

  • Carrie E. Pierce

    (Epidemico Inc.)

  • Harold W. Rodriguez

    (Epidemico Inc.)

  • John S. Brownstein

    (Epidemico Inc.)

  • Clark C. Freifeld

    (Epidemico Inc.)

  • Heidi G. Bell

    (Zero Chaos)

  • Nabarun Dasgupta

    (Epidemico Inc.)

Abstract

Introduction Post-marketing safety surveillance primarily relies on data from spontaneous adverse event reports, medical literature, and observational databases. Limitations of these data sources include potential under-reporting, lack of geographic diversity, and time lag between event occurrence and discovery. There is growing interest in exploring the use of social media (‘social listening’) to supplement established approaches for pharmacovigilance. Although social listening is commonly used for commercial purposes, there are only anecdotal reports of its use in pharmacovigilance. Health information posted online by patients is often publicly available, representing an untapped source of post-marketing safety data that could supplement data from existing sources. Objectives The objective of this paper is to describe one methodology that could help unlock the potential of social media for safety surveillance. Methods A third-party vendor acquired 24 months of publicly available Facebook and Twitter data, then processed the data by standardizing drug names and vernacular symptoms, removing duplicates and noise, masking personally identifiable information, and adding supplemental data to facilitate the review process. The resulting dataset was analyzed for safety and benefit information. Results In Twitter, a total of 6,441,679 Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA®) Preferred Terms (PTs) representing 702 individual PTs were discussed in the same post as a drug compared with 15,650,108 total PTs representing 946 individual PTs in Facebook. Further analysis revealed that 26 % of posts also contained benefit information. Conclusion Social media listening is an important tool to augment post-marketing safety surveillance. Much work remains to determine best practices for using this rapidly evolving data source.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory E. Powell & Harry A. Seifert & Tjark Reblin & Phil J. Burstein & James Blowers & J. Alan Menius & Jeffery L. Painter & Michele Thomas & Carrie E. Pierce & Harold W. Rodriguez & John S. Brownst, 2016. "Social Media Listening for Routine Post-Marketing Safety Surveillance," Drug Safety, Springer, vol. 39(5), pages 443-454, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:drugsa:v:39:y:2016:i:5:d:10.1007_s40264-015-0385-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s40264-015-0385-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40264-015-0385-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40264-015-0385-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. IOSIF, Alina Natalia & GURGU, ELENA, 2019. "Provisions Concerning The Organization Of Events For The Promotion Of Products On The Pharmaceutical Market In Romania," Annals of Spiru Haret University, Economic Series, Universitatea Spiru Haret, vol. 19(3), pages 111-126.
    2. Susan Colilla & Elad Yom Tov & Ling Zhang & Marie-Laure Kurzinger & Stephanie Tcherny-Lessenot & Catherine Penfornis & Shang Jen & Danny S. Gonzalez & Patrick Caubel & Susan Welsh & Juhaeri Juhaeri, 2017. "Validation of New Signal Detection Methods for Web Query Log Data Compared to Signal Detection Algorithms Used With FAERS," Drug Safety, Springer, vol. 40(5), pages 399-408, May.
    3. Corina Buzoianu & Monica Bîră, 2021. "Using Social Media Listening in Crisis Communication and Management: New Methods and Practices for Looking into Crises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-15, November.
    4. Lucie M. Gattepaille & Sara Hedfors Vidlin & Tomas Bergvall & Carrie E. Pierce & Johan Ellenius, 2020. "Prospective Evaluation of Adverse Event Recognition Systems in Twitter: Results from the Web-RADR Project," Drug Safety, Springer, vol. 43(8), pages 797-808, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:drugsa:v:39:y:2016:i:5:d:10.1007_s40264-015-0385-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40264 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.