Radiology Content on TikTok: Current Use of a Novel Video-Based Social Media Platform and Opportunities for Radiology

Summary An outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that began in Wuhan, China, has spread rapidly, with cases now confirmed in multiple countries. We report the first case of 2019-nCoV infection confirmed in the United States and describe the identification, diagnosis, clinical course, and management of the case, including the patient’s initial mild symptoms at presentation with progression to pneumonia on day 9 of illness. This case highlights the importance of close coordination between clinicians and public health authorities at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as the need for rapid dissemination of clinical information related to the care of patients with this emerging infection.

Background There is currently a lack of information about the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals from primary research. Objective To review the current published literature to identify the uses, benefits, and limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals, and identify current gaps in the literature to provide recommendations for future health communication research. Methods This paper is a review using a systematic approach. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using nine electronic databases and manual searches to locate peer-reviewed studies published between January 2002 and February 2012. Results The search identified 98 original research studies that included the uses, benefits, and/or limitations of social media for health communication among the general public, patients, and health professionals. The methodological quality of the studies assessed using the Downs and Black instrument was low; this was mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of the studies in this review included limited methodologies and was mainly exploratory and descriptive in nature. Seven main uses of social media for health communication were identified, including focusing on increasing interactions with others, and facilitating, sharing, and obtaining health messages. The six key overarching benefits were identified as (1) increased interactions with others, (2) more available, shared, and tailored information, (3) increased accessibility and widening access to health information, (4) peer/social/emotional support, (5) public health surveillance, and (6) potential to influence health policy. Twelve limitations were identified, primarily consisting of quality concerns and lack of reliability, confidentiality, and privacy. Conclusions Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes. Social media is a powerful tool, which offers collaboration between users and is a social interaction mechanism for a range of individuals. Although there are several benefits to the use of social media for health communication, the information exchanged needs to be monitored for quality and reliability, and the users’ confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained. Eight gaps in the literature and key recommendations for future health communication research were provided. Examples of these recommendations include the need to determine the relative effectiveness of different types of social media for health communication using randomized control trials and to explore potential mechanisms for monitoring and enhancing the quality and reliability of health communication using social media. Further robust and comprehensive evaluation and review, using a range of methodologies, are required to establish whether social media improves health communication practice both in the short and long terms.

Background Surveys are popular methods to measure public perceptions in emergencies but can be costly and time consuming. We suggest and evaluate a complementary “infoveillance” approach using Twitter during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Our study aimed to: 1) monitor the use of the terms “H1N1” versus “swine flu” over time; 2) conduct a content analysis of “tweets”; and 3) validate Twitter as a real-time content, sentiment, and public attention trend-tracking tool. Methodology/Principal Findings Between May 1 and December 31, 2009, we archived over 2 million Twitter posts containing keywords “swine flu,” “swineflu,” and/or “H1N1.” using Infovigil, an infoveillance system. Tweets using “H1N1” increased from 8.8% to 40.5% (R 2 = .788; p<.001), indicating a gradual adoption of World Health Organization-recommended terminology. 5,395 tweets were randomly selected from 9 days, 4 weeks apart and coded using a tri-axial coding scheme. To track tweet content and to test the feasibility of automated coding, we created database queries for keywords and correlated these results with manual coding. Content analysis indicated resource-related posts were most commonly shared (52.6%). 4.5% of cases were identified as misinformation. News websites were the most popular sources (23.2%), while government and health agencies were linked only 1.5% of the time. 7/10 automated queries correlated with manual coding. Several Twitter activity peaks coincided with major news stories. Our results correlated well with H1N1 incidence data. Conclusions This study illustrates the potential of using social media to conduct “infodemiology” studies for public health. 2009 H1N1-related tweets were primarily used to disseminate information from credible sources, but were also a source of opinions and experiences. Tweets can be used for real-time content analysis and knowledge translation research, allowing health authorities to respond to public concerns.