IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ijphth/v64y2019i3d10.1007_s00038-018-1192-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A comparison of information sharing behaviours across 379 health conditions on Twitter

Author

Listed:
  • Ziqi Zhang

    (University of Sheffield)

  • Wasim Ahmed

    (Northumbria University)

Abstract

Objectives To compare information sharing of over 379 health conditions on Twitter to uncover trends and patterns of online user activities. Methods We collected 1.5 million tweets generated by over 450,000 Twitter users for 379 health conditions, each of which was quantified using a multivariate model describing engagement, user and content aspects of the data and compared using correlation and network analysis to discover patterns of user activities in these online communities. Results We found a significant imbalance in terms of the size of communities interested in different health conditions, regardless of the seriousness of these conditions. Improving the informativeness of tweets by using, for example, URLs, multimedia and mentions can be important factors in promoting health conditions on Twitter. Using hashtags on the contrary is less effective. Social network analysis revealed similar structures of the discussion found across different health conditions. Conclusions Our study found variance in activity between different health communities on Twitter, and our results are likely to be of interest to public health authorities and officials interested in the potential of Twitter to raise awareness of public health.

Suggested Citation

  • Ziqi Zhang & Wasim Ahmed, 2019. "A comparison of information sharing behaviours across 379 health conditions on Twitter," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 64(3), pages 431-440, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ijphth:v:64:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s00038-018-1192-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s00038-018-1192-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00038-018-1192-5
    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/s00038-018-1192-5?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Johannes Salem & Hendrik Borgmann & Matthew Bultitude & Hans-Martin Fritsche & Axel Haferkamp & Axel Heidenreich & Arkadiusz Miernik & Andreas Neisius & Thomas Knoll & Christian Thomas & Igor Tsaur, 2016. "Online Discussion on #KidneyStones: A Longitudinal Assessment of Activity, Users and Content," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-11, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Ingjerd Skafle & Elia Gabarron & Anders Dechsling & Anders Nordahl-Hansen, 2021. "Online Attitudes and Information-Seeking Behavior on Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and Greta Thunberg," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Irene Gómez-Marí & Pilar Sanz-Cervera & Raúl Tárraga-Mínguez, 2021. "Today Is My Day: Analysis of the Awareness Campaigns’ Impact on Functional Diversity in the Press, on Google, and on Twitter," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-13, July.
    3. Wasim Ahmed & Xavier Marin-Gomez & Josep Vidal-Alaball, 2020. "Contextualising the 2019 E-Cigarette Health Scare: Insights from Twitter," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-10, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      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:ijphth:v:64:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s00038-018-1192-5. 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.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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 .

      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.