Social networks are frequently used to discuss our state of health. In this context, Public Health France conducted a study to investigate whether Twitter data can be used for surveillance ofseasonal flu epidemic in France, and more particularly at the regional level. To do this, the researchers collected the tweets from August 8, 2016 to March 26, 2017 and then compared them to the monitoring system of the OSCOUR® (Organization for the coordinated surveillance of emergencies) and SOS Médecins networks.
In total, they collected 238,244 related tweets has the flu(those containing the keywords influenza, influenza, influenza), of which 130,559 were located in France. After a “cleaning” step, an algorithm made it possible to classify 22,939 tweets indicating an influenza state. Twitter data was then compared with that of the two monitors to test whether there was a link between the weekly number of influenza-related tweets and the weekly number of tweets. emergency passages or flu consultations.
“The results indicate a strong correlation, both nationally and regionally, between influenza-related tweets and ILI consultations.” underline the authors in the last Weekly epidemiological bulletin (BEH). “The use of social media as new sources of data is a breakthrough in epidemic surveillance. The data is available in real time and provides additional insight, providing information on a perceived state of health compared to the devices. existing systems that collect medical data “.
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