Using social media for biosurveillance: gap between research and action

Abstract

There is a significant body of literature on the use of social media for biosurveillance. However, less is known about the impact of integrating social media into public health practice, and resulting interventions. This motivated the ISDS Social Media for Disease Surveillance Workgroup to conduct a systematic literature review on the use of social media for actionable disease surveillance. Based on the preliminary results, there is little published literature on this topic, possibly suggesting that it is particularly challenging to translate research using social media for disease surveillance into practice.