State of the Science Review
Ebola virus disease and social media: A systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajic.2016.05.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Included 7 articles on Twitter, 1 on Facebook, 3 on YouTube, 1 on Instagram & Flickr.

  • 11 articles examined Ebola posts' content themes, meta-data or user characteristics.

  • One article examined how Ebola-related news videos influenced Twitter traffic.

Objectives

We systematically reviewed existing research pertinent to Ebola virus disease and social media, especially to identify the research questions and the methods used to collect and analyze social media.

Methods

We searched 6 databases for research articles pertinent to Ebola virus disease and social media. We extracted the data using a standardized form. We evaluated the quality of the included articles.

Results

Twelve articles were included in the main analysis: 7 from Twitter with 1 also including Weibo, 1 from Facebook, 3 from YouTube, and 1 from Instagram and Flickr. All the studies were cross-sectional. Eleven of the 12 articles studied ≥ 1of these 3 elements of social media and their relationships: themes or topics of social media contents, meta-data of social media posts (such as frequency of original posts and reposts, and impressions) and characteristics of the social media accounts that made these posts (such as whether they are individuals or institutions). One article studied how news videos influenced Twitter traffic. Twitter content analysis methods included text mining (n = 3) and manual coding (n = 1). Two studies involved mathematical modeling. All 3 YouTube studies and the Instagram/Flickr study used manual coding of videos and images, respectively.

Conclusions

Published Ebola virus disease-related social media research focused on Twitter and YouTube. The utility of social media research to public health practitioners is warranted.

Section snippets

Protocol

We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Checklist in our review process.10 The first author (ICHF) designed the systematic review and codesigned the data extraction spreadsheet with author CHD. Detailed instructions of the review procedures were communicated by ICHF to his junior coauthors (CHD, KCF, KRS, PLT, and ACH) via e-mail. The Online Supplementary Materials for this systematic review are available online at //healthdata.engr.uga.edu/static/publications/

Social media platforms

A total of 12 research articles were included in this systematic review (Fig 1).12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 Seven analyzed Twitter data (Table 1),12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 of which 1 also analyzed Weibo data;12 1 analyzed Facebook data (Supplementary Table S1);13 3 studied YouTube (Supplementary Table S2);22, 23, 24 and 1 compared 2 image-sharing platforms, Instagram and Flickr (Supplementary Table S3).25

In addition, relevant data were also extracted from 4 letters to the

Statement of principal findings

A total of 12 articles were included in this systematic review of scientific literature on social media research pertaining to the 2014-2015 Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa and associated cases in other countries. Seven presented Twitter data analysis (of which 1 also analyzed Weibo); 1 was on Facebook; 3 were on YouTube; and 1 was on Instagram and Flickr.

Uneven landscape of public health social media research

Our results reflect the uneven landscape of public health-related social media research, using Ebola virus disease as a case

Conclusions

During the 2014-2015 Ebola virus disease epidemic, public health agencies, news media, and individual users utilized social media to extensively communicate about the disease. For this systematic review, we identified 7 Ebola virus disease-related studies on Twitter, 1 of which also studied Weibo, 1 on Facebook, 3 on YouTube, and 1 on Instagram and Flickr. We summarized their research questions, study designs, data collection methods, and analytic methods. None of the included studies reported

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Juwon Park who read the Korean article and confirmed that it did not meet our inclusion criteria and should be excluded. The authors also thank Lisa Briseno, Keri Lubell, Rossmary Marquez, Martin I. Meltzer, Laura Pechta, and Belinda Smith for helpful discussion, as well as Corey Basch for clarifying details of her article via e-mail.

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    CHD, KCF, KRS, and P-LT contributed equally as co-second authors.

    Isaac Chun-Hai Fung receives salary support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (15IPA1509134). This systematic review is not part of his CDC-supported research. CDC has no role in its study design, data analysis, writing or its submission for publication. The opinions expressed in this article do not represent the official positions of the CDC, or the United States Government.

    ICHF conceived, designed, and led the study. CHD, KCF, KRS, and AH searched the bibliographic databases and did the initial screening of abstracts. CHD, KCF, KRS, and PLT screened the full text of the articles and decided on inclusion or exclusion. They also extracted data and assessed the quality of the included studies. ICHF made the final decision on the inclusion/exclusion, data extraction, and quality assessment of the studies. ICHF wrote the first draft of the manuscript. MG, KWF, and ZTHT provided intellectual input and critically edited the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

    Conflicts of Interest: None to report.

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