Local Health Departments Tweeting About Ebola: Characteristics and Messaging

Journal of Public Health Management and Practice : JPHMP
Roger WongJay M Bernhardt

Abstract

The first imported US Ebola hemorrhagic fever case during the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak triggered an increase in online activity through various social media platforms, including Twitter. The purpose of our study was to examine characteristics of local health departments (LHDs) tweeting about Ebola, in addition to how and when LHDs were communicating Ebola-related messages. All tweets sent by 287 LHDs known to be using Twitter were collected from September 3 to November 2, 2014. Twitter data were merged with the 2013 National Association of County & City Health Officials Profile study to assess LHD characteristics associated with sending Ebola-related tweets. To examine the content of Ebola tweets, we reviewed all such tweets and developed a codebook including 4 major message categories: information giving, news update, event promotion, and preparedness. A time line tracking the trends in Ebola tweets was created by aligning daily tweets with major Ebola news events posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Web site. Approximately 60% (n = 174) of all LHDs using Twitter sent a total of 1648 Ebola-related tweets during the study period. Sending more tweets in general (odds ratio: 2.42; 95% confidence i...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 27, 2016·JMIR Public Health and Surveillance·Yuya SugawaraAkira Fukao
Aug 25, 2017·Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness·Roger Wong, Jenine K Harris
Dec 20, 2016·Annual Review of Public Health·Paul Campbell Erwin, Ross C Brownson
Oct 10, 2019·Journal of Medical Internet Research·Yahya AlbalawiJim Buckley
Sep 12, 2018·International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health·May O LwinPeter J Schulz
Dec 17, 2020·Health Security·Sarah C VosCarter T Butts
Jul 15, 2021·Journal of Healthcare Informatics Research·Ahmed Al-RawiJulia Smith
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