Tobacco Use Behaviors, Attitudes, and Demographic Characteristics of Tobacco Opinion Leaders and Their Followers: Twitter Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Tobacco-related content on social media is generated and propagated by opinion leaders on the Web who disseminate messages to others in their network, including followers, who then continue to spread the information. Opinion leaders can exert powerful influences on their followers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; yet, little is known about the demographic characteristics and tobacco use behavior of tobacco opinion leaders on the Web and their followers, compared with general Twitter users.

Objective

In this study, we hypothesized that opinion leaders use more tobacco products and have higher nicotine dependence than the other 2 groups (eg, followers and general Twitter users) and that followers-those who spread messages by opinion leaders-would more likely be

SUBMITTER: Chu KH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6746100 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature