title: Ebola virus disease and social media: A systematic review.
abstract: We systematically reviewed existing research pertinent to Ebola virus disease and social media, especially to identify the research questions and the methods used to collect and analyze social media.
  
  
  
  We searched 6 databases for research articles pertinent to Ebola virus disease and social media. We extracted the data using a standardized form. We evaluated the quality of the included articles.
  
  
  
  Twelve articles were included in the main analysis: 7 from Twitter with 1 also including Weibo, 1 from Facebook, 3 from YouTube, and 1 from Instagram and Flickr. All the studies were cross-sectional. Eleven of the 12 articles studied ≥ 1of these 3 elements of social media and their relationships: themes or topics of social media contents, meta-data of social media posts (such as frequency of original posts and reposts, and impressions) and characteristics of the social media accounts that made these posts (such as whether they are individuals or institutions). One article studied how news videos influenced Twitter traffic. Twitter content analysis methods included text mining (n = 3) and manual coding (n = 1). Two studies involved mathematical modeling. All 3 YouTube studies and the Instagram/Flickr study used manual coding of videos and images, respectively.
  
  
  
  Published Ebola virus disease-related social media research focused on Twitter and YouTube. The utility of social media research to public health practitioners is warranted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA. Electronic address: cfung@georgiasouthern.edu.
authors.forename: Isaac Chun-Hai
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Fung
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
authors.forename: Carmen Hope
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Duke
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
authors.forename: Kathryn Cameron
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Finch
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
authors.forename: Kassandra Renee
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Snook
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
authors.forename: Pei-Ling
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Tseng
authors.affiliation: Department of Foreign Languages and Department of Biology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
authors.forename: Ana Cristina
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.affiliation: Epidemiological Modelling Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Manoj
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gambhir
authors.affiliation: Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: King-Wa
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.affiliation: College of Engineering, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA.
authors.forename: Zion Tsz Ho
authors.initials: ZTH
authors.lastname: Tse
mesh_terms: D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D011639:Public Opinion; D061108:Social Media
keywords: Health communication; Public health; Surveillance