Social Media as an Early Proxy for Social Distancing Indicated by the COVID-19 Reproduction Number: Observational Study
| Autor: | Jeremy S Ruthberg, Joseph Younis, Craig Nielsen, Neil Mehta, Jonathan P Romanes, Harvy Freitag |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
social media
social media surveillance Pneumonia Viral Psychological intervention Basic Reproduction Number Google Trends Health Informatics epidemic 03 medical and health sciences Apple Maps 0302 clinical medicine Public health surveillance Google Maps Humans Social media estimated reproduction number 030212 general & internal medicine Socioeconomic status Pandemics Original Paper business.industry Social distance pandemic Public Health Environmental and Occupational Health social distancing COVID-19 reproduction number Social mobility public health surveillance United States Psychological Distance Observational study The Internet Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 business Coronavirus Infections 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Demography |
| Zdroj: | JMIR Public Health and Surveillance JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, Vol 6, Iss 4, p e21340 (2020) |
| ISSN: | 2369-2960 |
| Popis: | Background The magnitude and time course of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States depends on early interventions to reduce the basic reproductive number to below 1. It is imperative, then, to develop methods to actively assess where quarantine measures such as social distancing may be deficient and suppress those potential resurgence nodes as early as possible. Objective We ask if social media is an early indicator of public social distancing measures in the United States by investigating its correlation with the time-varying reproduction number (Rt) as compared to social mobility estimates reported from Google and Apple Maps. Methods In this observational study, the estimated Rt was obtained for the period between March 5 and April 5, 2020, using the EpiEstim package. Social media activity was assessed using queries of “social distancing” or “#socialdistancing” on Google Trends, Instagram, and Twitter, with social mobility assessed using Apple and Google Maps data. Cross-correlations were performed between Rt and social media activity or mobility for the United States. We used Pearson correlations and the coefficient of determination (ρ) with significance set to P Results Negative correlations were found between Google search interest for “social distancing” and Rt in the United States (P Conclusions Our study demonstrates the potential use of Google Trends, Instagram, and Twitter as epidemiological tools in the assessment of social distancing measures in the United States during the early course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their correlation and earlier rise and peak in correlative strength with Rt when compared to social mobility may provide proactive insight into whether social distancing efforts are sufficiently enacted. Whether this proves valuable in the creation of more accurate assessments of the early epidemic course is uncertain due to limitations. These limitations include the use of a biased sample that is internet literate with internet access, which may covary with socioeconomic status, education, geography, and age, and the use of subtotal social media mentions of social distancing. Future studies should focus on investigating how social media reactions change during the course of the epidemic, as well as the conversion of social media behavior to actual physical behavior. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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