CHICAGO — Twitter could help save your life.
Public health experts say the social media website could provide early warnings of epidemics and pandemics. By monitoring “tweets,” or messages posted on Twitter, authorities can track the spread of diseases and use the information to create emergency response plans.
- A Twitter search of “I have flu” generates thousands of tweets
A team of experts in London studied tweets posted between May and December 2009, the height of the H1N1 pandemic, and counted more than 25,000 tweets that read “I have flu” or “I have swine flu,” according British media reports. A Twitter search of the same phrases today will still net thousands of results.
Experts conducting the study determined public health officials could use Twitter and other social media such as MySpace and Facebook to detect the onset of a pandemic. Tracking tweets could also improve response times in an emergency and help public health workers design a response plan that appropriately fits the severity of a disease outbreak. The World Health Organization has been widely criticized for exaggerating H1N1 and wasting resources in its response.
H1N1 was the first large-scale test of social media for many public health agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used social media to a greater extent than ever before during the outbreak through multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube and dozens of Widgets.
“People were interested in getting the message in a very timely manner, and Twitter allows us to do that,” said Holli Seitz, CDC social media specialist.
While the CDC has made social media a viable channel for disseminating public health information, it hasn’t yet reached the point of using social media to prepare for health emergencies.
“They’re not there yet,” said Margo Edmunds, instructor of Emergency and Risk Communication at John Hopkins University in Maryland. “This is very leading edge.”
Although some universities are using social media to study real-time disease outbreak, U.S. public health agencies have lagged behind academia, Edmunds said. Facebook and Twitter are still blocked on computers at some state public health agencies, perceived as social tools for teens and college students, Edmunds said.
“Twitter and Facebook, they’re just not seen as serious tools,” Edmunds said. “People just haven’t caught up.”
Other public health agencies don’t have the communication infrastructure in place to even participate in social media. The Illinois State Department of Health has no presence in social media. Illinois Emergency Management Agency, responsible for preparing the state for disasters and terrorist attacks, has a Facebook account that was activated after H1N1.
“We’re really new to the whole Twitter arena,” said Patti Thompson with the emergency management agency. “We’re trying to develop [our social media] so we could start using it during emergencies.”
The value of social media in disseminating information quickly during emergencies has been proven. Following the U.S. Airways emergency landing in the Hudson River, the earthquake that devastated Haiti and the car bomb planted in Times Square, tweets provided breaking news far ahead of many main stream media.
The prospect of social media surveillance is a new frontier, and one that has potential to improve the public’s health and safety. DIY City, an online group that develops and implements projects to improve cities around the world, recognized that potential and set up SickCity last year at the onset of H1N1. SickCity is an experimental tracking system that monitors Twitter conversation for key phrases that indicate someone is sick. By plotting the location of the tweets, SickCity determines the top-ten sickest cities.
Through social media, people eagerly share their personal lives with large audiences, and public health workers have access to that information in a more intimate and immediate way than ever before.
“People will share anything, if they think getting the information out will help them,” Edmunds said.
