title: Online Work Force Analyzes Social Media to Identify Consequences of an Unplanned School Closure - Using Technology to Prepare for the Next Pandemic.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  During an influenza pandemic, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may recommend school closures. These closures could have unintended consequences for students and their families. Publicly available social media could be analyzed to identify the consequences of an unplanned school closure.
  
  
  METHODS
  As a proxy for an unplanned, pandemic-related school closure, we used the district-wide school closure due to the September 10-18, 2012 teachers' strike in Chicago, Illinois. We captured social media posts about the school closure using the Radian6 social media-monitoring platform. An online workforce from Amazon Mechanical Turk categorized each post into one of two groups. The first group included relevant posts that described the impact of the closure on students and their families. The second group included irrelevant posts that described the political aspects of the strike or topics unrelated to the school closure. All relevant posts were further categorized as expressing a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment. We analyzed patterns of relevant posts and sentiment over time and compared our findings to household surveys conducted after other unplanned school closures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We captured 4,546 social media posts about the district-wide school closure using our search criteria. Of these, 930 (20%) were categorized as relevant by the online workforce. Of the relevant posts, 619 (67%) expressed a negative sentiment, 51 (5%) expressed a positive sentiment, and 260 (28%) were neutral. The number of relevant posts, and especially those with a negative sentiment, peaked on day 1 of the strike. Negative sentiment expressed concerns about childcare, missed school lunches, and the lack of class time for students. This was consistent with findings from previously conducted household surveys.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social media are publicly available and can readily provide information on the impact of an unplanned school closure on students and their families. Using social media to assess the impact of an unplanned school closure due to a public health event would be informative. An online workforce can effectively assist with the review process.
authors.affiliation: Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jeanette J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Rainey
authors.affiliation: Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jasmine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kenney
authors.affiliation: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wilburn
authors.affiliation: Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ami
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Putman
authors.affiliation: Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Yenlik
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheteyeva
authors.affiliation: Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Sullivan