Assessing Local Experiences of Health Phenomena: A Methodology for Social Media Surveillance in Public Health

Background Social media surveillance is a novel approach to understanding community discourse around public health topics. It enables researchers to observe how the public is responding to health phenomena and policies and to assess perceptions in real time. Social media data may also be leveraged to identify gaps in knowledge about a particular topic, to combat mis- and dis-information and may also add context to our understanding of health phenomena and of constituents’ perspective of access to services. Data analysis can occur quickly and can inform programming and messaging. We illustrate implementation of this approach using four social media surveillance projects conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene focusing on: COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in New York City (NYC), MPOX vaccine perceptions and experiences in NYC, perceptions of abortion access and legality in NYC post Dobbs, and information on use of sodium nitrite for suicide. Methods Our methodology has three parts: 1) project design, which includes selection of social media platforms and search parameters, 2) data collection and processing, which includes undertaking data extraction and management and creating an analytic dataset, and 3) data analysis and presentation in an applied context to influence decision-making on emerging phenomena. Results The results of four social media surveillance efforts using the described methodology and explain their real-world implications for the dissemination of public health information and the design of programs. Conclusions Social media surveillance can provide researchers with insight into perceptions of public health phenomena. This methodology is highly flexible and may be tailored to be especially responsive to local contexts, adapted for specific needs and skill capacities, and expanded to include future social media sites.