Garbage in, Garbage Out: Data Collection, Quality Assessment and Reporting Standards for Social Media Data Use in Health Research, Infodemiology and Digital Disease Detection.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Social media have transformed the communications landscape. People increasingly obtain news and health information online and via social media. Social media platforms also serve as novel sources of rich observational data for health research (including infodemiology, infoveillance, and digital disease detection detection). While the number of studies using social data is growing rapidly, very few of these studies transparently outline their methods for collecting, filtering, and reporting those data. Keywords and search filters applied to social data form the lens through which researchers may observe what and how people communicate about a given topic. Without a properly focused lens, research conclusions may be biased or misleading. Standards of reporting data sources

SUBMITTER: Kim Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4788740 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature