title: Using Social Media for Actionable Disease Surveillance and Outbreak Management: A Systematic Literature Review.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Research studies show that social media may be valuable tools in the disease surveillance toolkit used for improving public health professionals' ability to detect disease outbreaks faster than traditional methods and to enhance outbreak response. A social media work group, consisting of surveillance practitioners, academic researchers, and other subject matter experts convened by the International Society for Disease Surveillance, conducted a systematic primary literature review using the PRISMA framework to identify research, published through February 2013, answering either of the following questions: Can social media be integrated into disease surveillance practice and outbreak management to support and improve public health?Can social media be used to effectively target populations, specifically vulnerable populations, to test an intervention and interact with a community to improve health outcomes?Examples of social media included are Facebook, MySpace, microblogs (e.g., Twitter), blogs, and discussion forums. For Question 1, 33 manuscripts were identified, starting in 2009 with topics on Influenza-like Illnesses (n = 15), Infectious Diseases (n = 6), Non-infectious Diseases (n = 4), Medication and Vaccines (n = 3), and Other (n = 5). For Question 2, 32 manuscripts were identified, the first in 2000 with topics on Health Risk Behaviors (n = 10), Infectious Diseases (n = 3), Non-infectious Diseases (n = 9), and Other (n = 10).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The literature on the use of social media to support public health practice has identified many gaps and biases in current knowledge. Despite the potential for success identified in exploratory studies, there are limited studies on interventions and little use of social media in practice. However, information gleaned from the articles demonstrates the effectiveness of social media in supporting and improving public health and in identifying target populations for intervention. A primary recommendation resulting from the review is to identify opportunities that enable public health professionals to integrate social media analytics into disease surveillance and outbreak management practice.
authors.affiliation: Data Sciences and Analytics Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, United States of America.
authors.forename: Lauren E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Charles-Smith
authors.affiliation: International Society for Disease Surveillance, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Tera L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Reynolds
authors.affiliation: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Digital Productivity Flagship, Canberra, Australia.
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Cameron
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Conway
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Eric H Y
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.affiliation: Skoll Global Threats Fund, San Francisco, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.affiliation: Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Pavlin
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shigematsu
authors.affiliation: International Society for Disease Surveillance, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Laura C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Streichert
authors.affiliation: Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Hines, Illinois, United States of America.
authors.forename: Katie J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Suda
authors.affiliation: Data Sciences and Analytics Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, United States of America.
authors.forename: Courtney D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Corley
mesh_terms: D057218:Blogging; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D019468:Disease Management; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health; D061108:Social Media