Twitter has shown you can say a lot in 140 characters.
Now researchers have found that tweets can give insight into heart disease.
Twitter users who take to social media to express their anger, disgust and sadness are more likely to live in places with high rates of heart disease than those who tweet out more upbeat messages.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia analyzed a set of public tweets made between 2009 and 2010 that also included location data.
They then compared them with health data from 1,300 U.S. counties covering 88% of the population.
Writing in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers said they developed an emotional dictionary to catalog words including “hate,” expletives, “wonderful” and “friends.” That glossary allowed them to take a mental health check of a given community.
They found that expressing stress or hostility to your Twitter followers wasn't therapeutic. In fact, on a collective level, it signaled that the entire community likely was facing higher levels of stress and depression, both linked to heart disease. Similarly, positive tweets expressing excitement or optimism were correlated with lower rates of community heart disease. The findings held true even when the study controlled for income and education levels.
Researchers already have found that they can use Twitter to predict influenza patterns before individuals even start showing symptoms. Health systems, take note: Maybe you should add your social media manager to your population-health management team.
