April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Analysis of Cancer Tweets During Cancer Prevention Month
Background:
In 2022, the U.S. recorded 1.9 million new cancer cases and nearly 610,000 cancer-related deaths. Twitter, now known as X, is reported as a prominent platform for the dissemination of health information, and for online cancer information sharing and seeking. Extant research examines the use of Twitter to promote health messages during periods designated to awareness of certain diseases. Messages raising awareness of breast cancer, for example, may promulgate on Twitter during October (i.e., Breast Cancer Awareness Month) or align with a health campaign (i.e., “Movember” that raises awareness of prostate cancer during November); however, several research findings indicate that tweets posted about cancer or a campaign rarely include messages motivating users to undergo screening and at times fail to mention cancer type. Further, research shows that social media posts peak in the first few days of the commemorative month. This exploratory study, guided by the Health Belief Model, aims to examine tweets during the first week of Cancer Prevention Month, which occurs annually in February, to examine prevalence of cancer types mentioned in the tweet, variation between individual owned or organizational owned accounts, and the prevalence of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, cues to action and self-efficacy.
Methods:
Using hashtags #cancerpreventionmonth, #cancerprevention, #cancerawarenesss and #nationalcancerpreventionmonth, 1,462 tweets were downloaded using Twitter API within the first week of February 2023. We removed foreign language tweets, emojis, reply and retweets for the final analysis (N= 1,248). Two graduate students coded 10% of tweets for intercoder reliability. All variables met a reliability of 0.70 or above. The remaining dataset was divided further for coding and analysis.
Results:
Preliminary findings show that 20% of tweets were posted from individual accounts while 72.7% were from organizational accounts. Most tweets were posted from North America (38.8%; n=484), followed by Asia (21.95%; n=274), whereas fewest tweets were posted from South America (0.24%; n=3). Regarding HBM constructs, we found prevalence of tweets highlighting perceived susceptibility (n=125; 10.2%), perceived severity (n=79;6.33%), perceived benefits (n=297; 23.8%), perceived barriers (n=18;1.44%), cues to action (n=437;35.02%), and perceived self-efficacy (n=494; 39.59%). Further, only 8.65% of tweets mentioned cancer types, among which breast cancer (6.9%) was the most cited cancer type.
Discussion:
Our results supported findings from previous research that the majority of tweets did not promote any specific cancer prevention behavior. Further, organizational tweets were focused on promoting events or sharing the overall mission of their companies, whereas individual accounts highlighted personal lived experiences of diagnosis. Results further indicated the opportunity to raise awareness of different cancer types, particularly those with increasing prevalence like colon cancer. Furthermore, our results indicated that most tweets originated from Twitter users outside the U.S., supporting the prospect of research that compares cancer-related Twitter messages originating between the U.S. and global audiences.
In 2022, the U.S. recorded 1.9 million new cancer cases and nearly 610,000 cancer-related deaths. Twitter, now known as X, is reported as a prominent platform for the dissemination of health information, and for online cancer information sharing and seeking. Extant research examines the use of Twitter to promote health messages during periods designated to awareness of certain diseases. Messages raising awareness of breast cancer, for example, may promulgate on Twitter during October (i.e., Breast Cancer Awareness Month) or align with a health campaign (i.e., “Movember” that raises awareness of prostate cancer during November); however, several research findings indicate that tweets posted about cancer or a campaign rarely include messages motivating users to undergo screening and at times fail to mention cancer type. Further, research shows that social media posts peak in the first few days of the commemorative month. This exploratory study, guided by the Health Belief Model, aims to examine tweets during the first week of Cancer Prevention Month, which occurs annually in February, to examine prevalence of cancer types mentioned in the tweet, variation between individual owned or organizational owned accounts, and the prevalence of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, cues to action and self-efficacy.
Methods:
Using hashtags #cancerpreventionmonth, #cancerprevention, #cancerawarenesss and #nationalcancerpreventionmonth, 1,462 tweets were downloaded using Twitter API within the first week of February 2023. We removed foreign language tweets, emojis, reply and retweets for the final analysis (N= 1,248). Two graduate students coded 10% of tweets for intercoder reliability. All variables met a reliability of 0.70 or above. The remaining dataset was divided further for coding and analysis.
Results:
Preliminary findings show that 20% of tweets were posted from individual accounts while 72.7% were from organizational accounts. Most tweets were posted from North America (38.8%; n=484), followed by Asia (21.95%; n=274), whereas fewest tweets were posted from South America (0.24%; n=3). Regarding HBM constructs, we found prevalence of tweets highlighting perceived susceptibility (n=125; 10.2%), perceived severity (n=79;6.33%), perceived benefits (n=297; 23.8%), perceived barriers (n=18;1.44%), cues to action (n=437;35.02%), and perceived self-efficacy (n=494; 39.59%). Further, only 8.65% of tweets mentioned cancer types, among which breast cancer (6.9%) was the most cited cancer type.
Discussion:
Our results supported findings from previous research that the majority of tweets did not promote any specific cancer prevention behavior. Further, organizational tweets were focused on promoting events or sharing the overall mission of their companies, whereas individual accounts highlighted personal lived experiences of diagnosis. Results further indicated the opportunity to raise awareness of different cancer types, particularly those with increasing prevalence like colon cancer. Furthermore, our results indicated that most tweets originated from Twitter users outside the U.S., supporting the prospect of research that compares cancer-related Twitter messages originating between the U.S. and global audiences.