Future-oriented tweets predict lower county-level HIV prevalence in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Future orientation promotes health and well-being at the individual level. Computerized text analysis of a dataset encompassing billions of words used across the United States on Twitter tested whether community-level rates of future-oriented messages correlated with lower human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rates and moderated the association between behavioral risk indicators and HIV.

Method

Over 150 million tweets mapped to U.S. counties were analyzed using 2 methods of text analysis. First, county-level HIV rates (cases per 100,000) were regressed on aggregate usage of future-oriented language (e.g., will, gonna). A second data-driven method regressed HIV rates on individual words and phrases.

Results

Results showed that counties with higher rates of futu

SUBMITTER: Ireland ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5621637 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature