title: Can Twitter Be a Source of Information on Allergy? Correlation of Pollen Counts with Tweets Reporting Symptoms of Allergic Rhinoconjunctivitis and Names of Antihistamine Drugs.
abstract: Pollen forecasts are in use everywhere to inform therapeutic decisions for patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (ARC). We exploited data derived from Twitter in order to identify tweets reporting a combination of symptoms consistent with a case definition of ARC and those reporting the name of an antihistamine drug. In order to increase the sensitivity of the system, we applied an algorithm aimed at automatically identifying jargon expressions related to medical terms. We compared weekly Twitter trends with National Allergy Bureau weekly pollen counts derived from US stations, and found a high correlation of the sum of the total pollen counts from each stations with tweets reporting ARC symptoms (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.95) and with tweets reporting antihistamine drug names (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.93). Longitude and latitude of the pollen stations affected the strength of the correlation. Twitter and other social networks may play a role in allergic disease surveillance and in signaling drug consumptions trends.
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gesualdo
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Stilo
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: D'Ambrosio
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Emanuela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Carloni
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisabetta
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pandolfi
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Velardi
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fiocchi
authors.affiliation: Multifactorial Disease and Complex Phenotype Research Area, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alberto E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Tozzi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000485:Allergens / Q000276:immunology; D002980:Climate; D003231:Conjunctivitis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003625:Data Collection; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D006633:Histamine Antagonists / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D011058:Pollen / Q000737:chemistry*; D006255:Rhinitis, Allergic, Seasonal / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D061108:Social Media; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D000485:Allergens; D006633:Histamine Antagonists