From Disease Detection to Health Campaigns: The Role of Social Media Analytics in Public Health
摘要
Social Media Networks (SMNs) have become valuable tools for public health monitoring, health promotion, providing real-time data on health-related behaviors, opinions, and disease outbreaks. At the same time SMNs can leave a negative impact in the healthcare industry in ways such as misinformation. Especially when there exists no policy that controls the spread of misinformation, it can have harmful effects on both the individuals and communities. Additionally, it may increase the probability of adverse health outcomes and lead to poor health choices. An overview of the role of SMNs in public health is provided in this chapter. It emphasizes on the ways in which professionals and laypeople may utilize these platforms to monitor vaccination rates and public health initiatives, assess public sentiment, and create disease detection algorithms. Furthermore, SMNs can significantly contribute to the promotion of health by fostering professional teamwork and communication. Especially if they offer a forum for the exchange of knowledge, resources, and tactics to support public health campaigns. This chapter may be helpful to researchers and graduate students who are interested in public health initiatives and SMN content analysis. It describes how to use SMNs to enhance health promotion tactics and evaluate public health trends more accurately.