COUNTING CONVERSATIONS ON LUNG CANCER: ANALYZING THE FOOTPRINT OF VARIOUS HEALTHCARE STAKEHOLDERS ON TWITTER

Abstract

SESSION TITLE: Tuesday Abstract Posters SESSION TYPE: Original Investigation Posters PRESENTED ON: 10/22/2019 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM PURPOSE: To evaluate interactions between various stakeholders on the subject of lung cancer on Twitter. METHODS: We used Symplur Signals (Symplur LLC) to examine characteristics of interactions surrounding the hashtag #LungCancer amongst various stakeholders. Data was collected quarterly between January 2014 and December 2018. RESULTS: Overall, there were 549,911 tweets by 188,337 users resulting in more than 2.8 billion impressions. Clinicians, healthcare organizations (HCOs) and non-healthcare individuals (NHCIs) comprised majority of users and tweets while industry had the smallest numbers. Compared to other stakeholders, HCOs had higher number of tweets (8,596 + 3,115 vs. 3,143 + 2,369; p<0.001), tweets per user (6.3 + 1.4 vs 4.8 + 2.0; p=0.001), tweets per hour (3.9 + 1.4 vs. 1.4 + 1.1; p<0.001), tweets with links (80 + 3% vs. 63 + 7%; p<0.001) and impressions (63.5 + 28.7 million vs. 14.8 + 9.1 million; p<0.001). HCOs were less likely to include mentions or media content in their tweets and were less likely to have their tweets replied to or retweeted. Clinicians and NHCIs posted comparable number of tweets (4,986 + 1,595 vs 4,175 + 1,214) although clinicians had more users tweeting (1,574 + 420 vs. 1,023 + 324; p<0.001). Compared to NHCIs, clinicians had lower impressions (12.8 + 7.8 million vs. 19.7 + 9.3 million; p=0.02) and lower frequency of users posting more than 10 tweets per quarter (5 + 1% vs. 7 + 1%; p<0.001). Clinicians and NHCIs had similar percentages of tweets with links, mentions, and media. The tweet number, frequency and engagement metrics for industry were significantly lower compared to other groups, except that they had the highest number of users generating more than 10 tweets per quarter (21% + 7%) compared to other stakeholders (6% + 1% overall). “Patients”, “screening” and “lung cancer” were in the top ten most commonly used terms across all stakeholder groups while “research” was amongst the top ten terms used by NHCIs, industry and HCOs. All four stakeholder groups commonly used hashtags #LCSM (Lung Cancer Social Media) and #LCAM (Lung Cancer Awareness Month) while all groups except industry commonly used the hashtag #cancer besides the primary hashtag #LungCancer. CONCLUSIONS: Healthcare organizations have the largest digital footprint amongst stakeholders tweeting about #LungCancer. Clinicians and non-healthcare individuals had comparable footprints, while industry seems to have a small presence in conversations around the hashtag #LungCancer. These conversations have also formed around secondary hashtags #LCSM and #LCAM. Screening is a commonly used term while conversations appear to revolve around patients across all stakeholders. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Further exploration of these online conversations can help in understanding stakeholder priorities as related to lung cancer. DISCLOSURES: No relevant relationships by Kamran Boka, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Christopher Carroll, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Yonatan Greenstein, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Viren Kaul, source=Web Response No relevant relationships by Silvio Namendys-Silva, source=Web Response