What can we learn about the Ebola outbreak from tweets

摘要: Background Twitter can address the challenges of current Ebola outbreak surveillance. The aims this study are to demonstrate use as a real-time method surveillance monitor information spread, capture early epidemic detection, and examine content public knowledge attitudes. Methods We collected tweets mentioning in English during stage from July 24-August 1, 2014. Our analysis for observational includes time series with geologic visualization observe dissemination using natural language processing Results A total 42,236 (16,499 unique 25,737 retweets) were posted disseminated 9,362,267,048 people, 63 times higher than initial number. Tweets started rise Nigeria 3-7 days prior official announcement first probable case. topics discussed include risk factors, prevention education, disease trends, compassion. Conclusion Because dataset captured outbreak, our results provide insight into intersection social media health Findings usefulness mining inform education.