Imperial College London
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DrTalyaPorat

Faculty of Engineering, Dyson School of Design Engineering

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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t.porat

 
 
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Location

 

Dyson BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Porat:2019:eurpub/cky144,
author = {Porat, T and Garaizar, P and Ferrero, M and Jones, H and Ashworth, M and Vadillo, M},
doi = {eurpub/cky144},
journal = {European Journal of Public Health},
pages = {117--122},
title = {Content and source analysis of popular tweets following a recent case of diphtheria in Spain},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky144},
volume = {29},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - BackgroundDespite major progress in global vaccination coverage, immunization rates are falling, resulting in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. This study analyses content and source of the most popular tweets related to a recent case in Spain where an unvaccinated child contracted and later died from diphtheria. Understanding the characteristics of these tweets in the context of vaccination could inform efforts by health promotion professionals to increase their reach and impact.MethodsWe extracted tweets containing keywords related to the diphtheria case (from 1 May to 15 July 2015). We explored the prevalence of terms relating to policy and misinformation and manually coded the 194 most popular tweets (retweeted 100 or more times) with regard to source, topic, tone and sentiment.ResultsA total of 722 974 tweets were collected. Prevalence of terms relating to policy and misinformation increased at the onset of the case and after the death of the child. Popular tweets (194) were either pro-vaccination (58%) or neutral, with none classified as anti-vaccination. Popular topics included criticism towards anti-vaccination groups (35%) and effectiveness of immunization (22%). Popular tweets were informative (47%) or opinions (53%), which mainly expressed frustration (24%) or humour/sarcasm (23%). Popular Twitter accounts were newspaper and TV channels (15%), as well as individual journalists and authors of popular science (13.4%).ConclusionsHealthcare organizations could collaborate with popular journalists or news outlets and employ authors of popular science to disseminate health information on social media, while addressing public concerns and misinformation in accessible ways.
AU  - Porat,T
AU  - Garaizar,P
AU  - Ferrero,M
AU  - Jones,H
AU  - Ashworth,M
AU  - Vadillo,M
DO  - eurpub/cky144
EP  - 122
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 1101-1262
SP  - 117
TI  - Content and source analysis of popular tweets following a recent case of diphtheria in Spain
T2  - European Journal of Public Health
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cky144
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/62005
VL  - 29
ER  -
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