UNSTRUCTURED
Established methods for collecting surveillance data and attitudinal or behaviour data during a pandemic are limited by issues including cost, timeliness and reliability. This paper presents the outcomes of a rapid evidence review exploring the potential utility of online data, and particularly social media data, for contributing to both outbreak detection and the assessment of influenza-related health behaviours and sentiments.
Three literature reviews, including one systematised review, contributed to this rapid evidence review. The systematised review search was conducted on PubMed and Google Scholar. From an initial total of 787 papers found through the search, 54 relevant articles were identified and included in the synthesis. These papers were combined with our initial narrative reviews to form the rapid evidence review and subsequent literature synthesis.
Overall, the literature suggests that online data do have a role to play in both surveillance and understanding public responses and concerns during large-scale infectious disease outbreaks. However, given the relative infancy of work in this area, more research is needed – particularly around evaluating the validity and reliability of these approaches – before complex online data can be used with confidence to inform public health decision-making.