Twitter Review: Social Media in Health Informatics

Twitter Review
Social Media in health informatics
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Twitter Review
Contents
Part 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Critique on how Twitter as a social media tool, can be utilised for informed public health
informatics field...............................................................................................................................3
Twitter facilitating public health informatics..............................................................................5
Managing outbreaks.....................................................................................................................6
Disease prediction........................................................................................................................7
Ethical concerns...........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Part 2...............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction......................................................................................................................................9
Barriers to uptake telemedicine...................................................................................................9
ICT/Infrastructure support structures........................................................................................10
Challenges for uptake of telemedicine is Australia...................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................13
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Twitter Review
Part 1
Introduction
Twitter is an interactive social media platform built in 2006 that allows users to send 140
characters to each other. Public health researchers have begun using Twitter to conduct research
to interact with research participants and tap into data platforms. However, this growing work
has not been systematically studied. Twitter-based public health research is an area of continuous
development. Future work needs to help create standardized reporting guidelines to improve the
repeatability and comparability of Twitter research. In social media networks, Twitter provides a
unique source of big data for public health researchers due to the real-time nature of content and
the convenience of accessing and searching for publicly available information. The scope and
number of data is important every day, with more than 300 million active users sending 500
million tweets worldwide (Gualtieri, 2010). Although Twitter users do not represent the US
population, they represent a broad demographic group. In addition to its potential as a more
traditional data source, Twitter is also interactive; researchers can contribute to social networks
and use this as a recruiting tool or intervention.
Critique on how Twitter as a social media tool, can be utilised for informed
public health informatics field.
Twitter-based health research is a rapidly growing field. The number of publications per year has
roughly tripled. Twitter research has received support from various funding organizations,
including the federal government through the National Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration, foundations and universities. The diversity and
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Twitter Review
breadth of funding opportunities demonstrate the value and broad interest of Twitter-based health
research.
Three public health-related Twitter accounts @Healthypolicies is a health policy and a blog
dedicated to advancing policies that protect and expand vital resources for health.
@RuralMental_Hth is yearly conference dedicated for mental health as well as for mental
health facilities, practices, and workers in most rural and remote areas of Australia. At the Rural
and Remote Mental Health Symposium 2019 Australia, listen to the insights of experts working
to improve mental health services in rural and remote areas, and learn what you can do to
provide and advocate equal mental health services for all Australians (Hall, Nam, Thornton,
DeAngelus & Dasey, 2015). Australians living and working in rural and remote areas can only
receive mental health services in one-fifth of the urban area. This inequality poses a serious risk
to a large number of Australians, leading to increased suffering for those seeking help, support
and treatment of mental health problems. Connect with professionals to promote services and
support mental health in rural and remote areas, from leading keynote speakers and industry
workers to governments, academics, researchers and personal service providers.
@TheMarmotReview: The Institute for Health Equity is committed to reducing health-related
inequities by simply addressing the social determinants of health. After focusing on all three
public health-related Twitter accounts, I learned five weeks of knowledge from these feeds.
Twitter is becoming a popular way to build communities that can provide public health
professionals with microblogging capabilities that can reach people with special health problems
and help them suffer from disease burdens at peak times. Since the full text of the tweet is
available and the individual tweets can be tracked over time, multiple symptoms can be tracked
as well as other information about how the individual is not related to the disease. In addition to
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