There is a significant body of literature on the use of social media for monitoring ailments such as influenza-like illness1 and cholera,2 as well as public opinions on topics such as vaccination.3 In general, these studies have shown that social media correlates well with official data sources,1,2,3 with the trends identifiable before official data are available.2 However, less is known about the impact of integrating social media into public health practice, and resulting interventions. Therefore, the ISDS Social Media for Disease Surveillance Workgroup initiated a systematic literature review on the use of social media for actionable biosurveillance.
Objective
The objective of this study is to systematically review the literature on the use of social media for biosurveillance in order to evaluate whether this data source can improve public health practice or community health outcomes.