title: Reactions on Twitter to updated alcohol guidelines in the UK: a content analysis.
abstract: In January 2016, the 4 UK Chief Medical Officers released a public consultation regarding updated guidelines for low-risk alcohol consumption. This study aimed to assess responses to the updated guidelines using comments made on Twitter.
  
  
  
  Tweets containing the hashtag #alcoholguidelines made during 1 week following the announcement of the updated guidelines were retrieved using the Twitter Archiver tool. The source, sentiment and themes of the tweets were categorised using manual content analysis.
  
  
  
  A total of 3061 tweets was retrieved. 6 sources were identified, the most prominent being members of the public. Of 821 tweets expressing sentiment specifically towards the guidelines, 80% expressed a negative sentiment. 11 themes were identified, 3 of which were broadly supportive of the guidelines, 7 broadly unsupportive and 1 neutral. Overall, more tweets were unsupportive (49%) than supportive (44%). While the most common theme overall was sharing information, the most common in tweets from members of the public encouraged alcohol consumption (15%) or expressed disagreement with the guidelines (14%), reflecting reactance, resistance and misunderstanding.
  
  
  
  This descriptive analysis revealed a number of themes present in unsupportive comments towards the updated UK alcohol guidelines among a largely proalcohol community. An understanding of these may help to tailor effective communication of alcohol and health-related policies, and could inform a more dynamic approach to health communication via social media.
authors.affiliation: Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Kaidy
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9279-7042
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Stautz
authors.affiliation: Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bignardi
authors.affiliation: Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Gareth J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Hollands
authors.affiliation: Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Theresa M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Marteau
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000379:methods*; D061108:Social Media / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Twitter; alcohol; alcohol guidelines; health communication; social media