Using Social Media to Tailor Public Health Responses

Using Social Media to Tailor Public Health Responses

• 1.
  Using social media analysisto explore public perceptions on health in the context of the COVID-19 response in Nigeria Dr. Ebele Mogo Global Diet and Activity Research Group and Network MRC Epidemiology Unit University of Cambridge
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  Public health inthe context of global disruptions • The pandemic is unlikely to be the last major societal disruption the world witnesses. • Future disruptions such as climate change related conflicts and natural disasters require novel responses far beyond the traditional limits of public health • Need to combine traditional public health responsibility of scaling cost- effective top-down responses with an ability to explore contextual factors e.g. public perceptions that influence their translation into impact
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  Response in African countries •Emergency meeting of pan-African Ministers of health • Creation of a continent-wide strategy • Agreements around regional-level data sharing, and solidarity in accessing diagnostics and vaccines • Mix of national level measures - lockdowns, border restrictions, mandating of protective behaviours and the deployment of palliatives • However, local perceptions of these responses are understudied and limited by movement restrictions • Used a social media analysis to explore public perception in Nigeria in the context of COVID-19 pandemic control measures between January and August 2020
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  The Informal Appropriationof public space for Leisure Physical Activity (ALPhA Study) • Funded by the British Academy’s Urban Infrastructures of wellbeing Programme + Alborada Research Fund • Institutional Partners: • Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Lagos • Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Science, University of Yaoundé • MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge • Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge • Department of Chemistry, University of Lagos
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  ALPhA Study workpackages • Systematic review on public space initiatives and physical activity in African cities • Stakeholder engagement on improving public spaces for leisure physical activity in both countries • Social media analysis of public sentiments around COVID-19, leisure physical activity and health risks and opportunities • Location mapping and air quality measurement • Citizen scientist capturing of spaces, risks and opportunities related to physical activity and NCDs • Knowledge translation
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  The evolving conversation •Used Brandwatch, a tool which tracks publicly available social media data from sites primarily from Twitter to explore public perceptions during Nigeria’s lockdown period • Captures the volume and engagement of public reactions to marketing campaigns • Classifies negative and positive sentiments around such campaigns • Monitors the geographical spread of these sentiments. • Query focused on Nigeria’s lockdown period, which can be broken down into 4 stages between January and August 2020.
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  The evolving conversation •Conversation spikes during the pre-lockdown phase related to changing developments such as testing Nigeria’s 2nd COVID-19 case and the suspension of major football leagues. • Evolved into calls for caution in protecting health, high percentage of pandemic deaths with underlying chronic conditions, and alarming projections for COVID-19 cases in Lagos (see 1 and 2). • During lockdown period, negative sentiments decreased and conversations moved from alarm to advice on health promotion and challenging health misinformation (See 1,2,3,4). • Finally, toward the post-lockdown phase, conversation spikes included interests in weight loss and government updates. Mental health topics such as depression also became more prominent in this time period (see 1 and 2).
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  Atypical actors • Conversationsaround the pandemic and health were driven by individuals more than organizations • Messaging from popular Nigerian personalities including social media influencers, comedians, musicians, footballers, and prominent business people had a stronger engagement than messaging from (health) organizations. • Influencers like @Aproko_doctor with a similar number of followers as the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) (1.1 million at the time) had significantly more retweets and likes from their content
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  Organizations sharing COVID-19and health messaging • Health organizations: World Health Organization, the Lagos State Ministry of Health, UNICEF Nigeria, Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, and the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health who played a role in sharing health messaging • Businesses such as Konga Nigeria and the Nigerian Stock Exchange • Government agencies including the Nigerian Police Force • Media agencies such as the Daily Trust Newspapers • Vital information for multisectoral response
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  Contextual narratives • Stay-at-homemeasures to interrupt disease transmission versus demand for public space for leisure activity. Reflected in observations and concerns about people meant to be staying indoors out on the streets playing sports. • Government’s suspension of various activities; admonitions to stay calm and obey lockdown orders (see 1; 2,3;4) versus public’s concerns about the feasibility of lockdown for poorer Nigerians (see 1,2 3) and the elitist nature of banning interstate road travel while permitting flights (see 1; 2; 3; 4).
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  Reflections on socialmedia analysis for tailoring public health responses
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  Spatio-temporal monitoring ofpublic perceptions • Social media analytics allow us to explore public perceptions in different locations, and how they evolve over time. • Can support the framing of public health responses for specific sub- populations • Can support tailoring of public health measures as contextual factors evolve.
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  Identifying atypical collaborators for strengthened responses •Sheds light on atypical public health communicators who could be crucial for a successful multisectoral response. • Provides insights on how to frame messages for a greater reach, and to trace potential misinformation in order to stem its spread.
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  Integrating contextual narratives for equitable top- downmeasures • Traditional survey tools leave a significant time lag between data collection, interpretation and use • Leaves the work of interpretation of large data sets largely to the researcher • Social media analysis allows capturing of public perceptions in near real time, and replies, clarifying tweets, pictures, retweets aid interpretation • Can integrate contextual realities into responses to rapidly evolving issues such as pandemics
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  Additional considerations • Social mediaanalysis not a stand-alone approach • Captures the perception of people with active social media accounts, a factor limited by social media bans and access to the internet • More social media data from highly populated cities such as Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja and Kaduna • Social media analytics tools often better at flagging social media conversations in popular global languages such as English • Social media analytics may be more effective at capturing public perception on certain issues such as those that spark strong sentiments