British Medical Bulletin
Volume 108 Issue 1 December 2013
http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/current

Social media in public health
Taha A. Kass-Hout* and Hend Alhinnawi
Author Affiliations
Humanitarian Tracker, Washington, DC, USA
Accepted August 27, 2013.
http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/108/1/5.abstract

Abstract
Introduction or background
While social media interactions are currently not fully understood, as individual health behaviors and outcomes are shared online, social media offers an increasingly clear picture of the dynamics of these processes.

Sources of data
Social media is becoming an increasingly common platform among clinicians and public health officials to share information with the public, track or predict diseases.

Areas of agreement
Social media can be used for engaging the public and communicating key public health interventions, while providing an important tool for public health surveillance.

Areas of controversy
Social media has advantages over traditional public health surveillance, as well as limitations, such as poor specificity, that warrant additional study.

Growing points
Social media can provide timely, relevant and transparent information of public health importance; such as tracking or predicting the spread or severity of influenza, west nile virus or meningitis as they propagate in the community, and, in identifying disease outbreaks or clusters of chronic illnesses.

Areas timely for developing research
Further work is needed on social media as a valid data source for detecting or predicting diseases or conditions. Also, whether or not it is an effective tool for communicating key public health messages and engaging both, the general public and policy-makers.