Abstract
BackgroundTwitter has emerged as a novel way for physicians to share ideas and advocate for policy change. #ThisIsOurLane (firearm injury) and #GetUsPPE (COVID-19) are examples of nationwide health care–led Twitter campaigns that went viral. Health care–initiated Twitter hashtags regarding major public health topics have gained national attention, but their content has not been systematically examined.ObjectiveWe hypothesized that Twitter discourse on two epidemics (firearm injury and COVID-19) would differ between tweets with health care–initiated hashtags (#ThisIsOurLane and #GetUsPPE) versus those with non–health care–initiated hashtags (#GunViolence and #COVID19).MethodsUsing natural language processing, we compared content, affect, and authorship of a random 1% of tweets using #ThisIsOurLane (Nov 2018-Oct 2019) and #GetUsPPE (March-May 2020), compared to #GunViolence and #COVID19 tweets, respectively. We extracted the relative frequency of single words and phrases and created two sets of features: (1) an open-vocabulary feature set to create 50 data-driven–determined word clusters to evaluate the content of tweets; and (2) a closed-vocabulary feature for psycholinguistic categorization among case and comparator tweets. In accordance with conventional linguistic analysis, we used a P<.001, after adjusting for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni correction, to identify potentially meaningful correlations between language features and outcomes.ResultsIn total, 67% (n=4828) of #ThisIsOurLane tweets and 36.6% (n=7907) of #GetUsPPE tweets were authored by health care professionals, compared to 16% (n=1152) of #GunViolence and 9.8% (n=2117) of #COVID19 tweets. Tweets using #ThisIsOurLane and #GetUsPPE were more likely to contain health care–specific language; more language denoting positive emotions, affiliation, and group identity; and more action-oriented content compared to tweets with #GunViolence or #COVID19, respectively.ConclusionsTweets with health care–led hashtags expressed more positivity and more action-oriented language than the comparison hashtags. As social media is increasingly used for news discourse, public education, and grassroots organizing, the public health community can take advantage of social media’s broad reach to amplify truthful, actionable messages around public health issues.
Highlights
As social media is increasingly used for news discourse, public education, and grassroots organizing, the public health community can take advantage of social media’s broad reach to amplify truthful, actionable messages around public health issues
Twitter has emerged as a novel way for physicians to organize and advocate for policy change, and combat misinformation amid national health crises
When Twitter advocacy campaigns brand their movement with a hashtag, tagged tweets are archived and found, opening up discussions to users who do not have any personal connection to the authors
Summary
Twitter has emerged as a novel way for physicians to organize and advocate for policy change, and combat misinformation amid national health crises. When Twitter advocacy campaigns brand their movement with a hashtag, tagged tweets are archived and found, opening up discussions to users who do not have any personal connection to the authors. #ThisIsOurLane and #GetUsPPE are examples of health care–initiated Twitter movements that went viral. Anecdotes suggest #ThisIsOurLane influenced societal perceptions of health care professionals’ role in firearm injury [4], and #GetUsPPE galvanized attention to hospitals’ unmet PPE needs [5,6]. Twitter has emerged as a novel way for physicians to share ideas and advocate for policy change. #ThisIsOurLane (firearm injury) and #GetUsPPE (COVID-19) are examples of nationwide health care–led Twitter campaigns that went viral. Health care–initiated Twitter hashtags regarding major public health topics have gained national attention, but their content has not been systematically examined
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