Elsevier

Annals of Epidemiology

Volume 25, Issue 12, December 2015, Pages 883-887
Annals of Epidemiology

Commentary
Is Twitter a forum for disseminating research to health policy makers?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2015.09.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Findings from scientific research largely remain inside the scientific community. Research scientists are being encouraged to use social media, and especially Twitter, for dissemination of evidence. The potential for Twitter to narrow the gap on evidence translated into policy presents new opportunities. We explored the innovative question of the feasibility of Twitter as a tool for the scientific community to disseminate to and engage with health policy makers for research impact. We created a list of federal “health policy makers.” In December 2014, we identified members using several data sources, then collected and summarized their Twitter usage data. Nearly all health policy makers had Twitter accounts. Their communication volume varied broadly. Policy makers are more likely to push information via Twitter than engage with constituents, although usage varied broadly. Twitter has the potential to aid the scientific community in dissemination of health-related research to health policy makers, after understanding how to effectively (and selectively) use Twitter.

Introduction

Findings from scientific research largely remain inside the scientific community. Less than 1% of articles published in a 3-month window appeared in news media such as Time and NBC News [1]; more than half originated in The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, and Nature [1]. Likewise, scholarly journals with higher impact factors are favored by regulatory policy makers [2].

The Internet is the second highest source of science news [3]. As a leading social media platform, Twitter's user base has grown dramatically since 2007, now with more than 302 million monthly active users and 500 million tweets per day (https://about.twitter.com/company). Twitter's mission is to “give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” This makes it an attractive platform for information dissemination.

The scientific community is beginning to embrace Twitter as a deliberate tool [4] for research dissemination; currently, less than 10% of PubMed articles are mentioned on Twitter [5].

Health professionals use Twitter for a broad range of health-related communications from personal statements to testable claims [6]. Science [7] and The Lancet [8] articles have explored the use of Twitter.

Scientific researchers have recently been called to further engage in their use of social media, and often specifically Twitter, as a tool for research dissemination [4], [9], [10], [11], [12]. The translation of evidence into practice and policy may be facilitated by researchers' use of social media [10]. Some advocate for an increasing need to narrow the communication gap between researchers and policy makers in the era of the Affordable Care Act [10].

As the role of social media in defining research impact is yet to be formalized [13], we consider the utility of Twitter as a route for the implementation sciences to directly connect researchers to policy makers.

The Congressional Research Service has reported that Congress members' three most frequently mentioned duties and activities included creating legislation, helping constituents solve problems, and representing the interests of their districts and constituents [14]. Likewise, expectations of the public are aligned with those of policy makers. According to a public survey, members are expected to represent the people and district consistent with the wishes of the majority, to solve problems of the district, and to engage with the people of the district [14].

To aid their duties as members, legislators have been encouraged to use Twitter for years. TweetCongress (http://tweetcongress.org/) began in 2008 to encourage government transparency, communication, and engagement with the public. In 2009, the Congressional Research Services suggested “these mediums allow members to communicate directly with constituents (and others) in a potentially interactive way that is not possible through mail or e-mail. For members and their staff, the ability to collect and transmit real time information from constituents could be influential for policy or voting decisions” [15].

In their role of problem solving, representing their districts, and creating legislation, policy makers have indicated that credible experts, objective content, and relevance of new insights to their priorities are among factors that help them increase awareness, decision making, and seek additional information [16].

It is therefore in this context of Twitter providing a platform to share ideas instantly; Congress members being encouraged to use Twitter; Congress members self-identifying their duties as helping constituents and representing the interests of their districts; and Congress members at times drawing on credible experts or evidence in their decision making and policy writing that we explored the innovative question of the feasibility of Twitter as a tool for the scientific community to translate and disseminate evidence for impact by engaging with health policy makers. Specifically, in the United States, we explored (1) how many health policy makers use Twitter; (2) how do health policy makers use Twitter; and (3) do health policy makers engage via Twitter?

Section snippets

Material and methods

We created a list of federal “health policy makers,” defined as individuals directly related to the actual writing of health legislation. This sampling frame is restricted to those within the legislative branch of the federal government, defined as: (1) “members of health committees,” that is, elected members of Congress who are on main committees with health jurisdiction; and (2) “committee staff,” that is, health staff of the main committees with health jurisdiction.

The main House committees

How many health policy makers use Twitter?

Nearly all health policy makers had Twitter accounts (95%–100%; Table 1).

How do health policy makers use Twitter?

Policy makers' Twitter communication volume varied broadly from 184 to 14,800 tweets over the account's lifetime. Health policy makers followed from 1 to 47,600 accounts and had attracted 959 to 514,000 followers.

Do health policy makers engage via Twitter?

Of the subsample of minimum and maximum users (Table 2), the rate of “@” mentions used in a tweet ranged from 24 to 87 per 100 recent tweets. The rate of hashtags included in a tweet ranged from 3 to 68 per 100

Discussion

This exploration is novel in its approach to a critical responsibility of the scientific community, that of research translation and dissemination of evidence for policy impact. We investigate the potential for the use of Twitter as a direct communication tool to bridge researchers and policy makers. We found that the most direct influencers of health legislation indeed use Twitter, some very actively.

As far as how policy makers use Twitter, we found broad variability in use of hashtags,

Conclusions

Twitter is a venue with the potential to help scientists disseminate health-related research for policy impact. But before encouraging researchers to flood Twitter with hashtags and retweets, it would be best to develop an evidence-based approach that leverages key people and moments. Effectively driving policy impact will require an understanding of influencers, behaviors, and activists specific to the Twitter culture.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Hensel previously served as a Health and Aging Policy/American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia (2008–2009). The authors thank Susan E. Meadows, MLS and Susan G. Elliott, MLS of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Missouri School of Medicine for their library expertise. The authors thank editor Dale Smith for his thoughtful editorial feedback; his time was funded by J.M.K.’s

References (31)

  • M.R. Wehner et al.

    Twitter: an opportunity for public health campaigns

    Lancet

    (2014)
  • J. Suleski et al.

    Scientists are talking, but mostly to each other: a quantitative analysis of research represented in mass media

    Public Underst Sci

    (2010)
  • B.A. Desmarais et al.

    Public policy's bibliography; the use of research in US regulatory impact analysis

    Regul Govern

    (2014)
  • Science and engineering indicators

    (2006)
  • E.K. Choo et al.

    Twitter as a tool for communication and knowledge exchange in academic medicine: a guide for skeptics and novices

    Med Teach

    (2015)
  • S. Haustein et al.

    Tweeting biomedicine: an analysis of tweets and citations in the biomedical literature

    J Assoc Inf Sci Technol

    (2014)
  • J.L. Lee et al.

    What are health-related users tweeting? A qualitative content analysis of health-related users and their messages on twitter

    J Med Internet Res

    (2014)
  • J. You

    Scientific community. Who are the science stars of Twitter?

    Science

    (2014)
  • D. Grande et al.

    Why researchers aren't on social media… and why they should be

    (2014)
  • D. Grande et al.

    Translating research for health policy: researchers' perceptions and use of social media

    Health Aff (Millwood)

    (2014)
  • E. Holve et al.

    Why Tweet? Building the skills to engage new audiences and promote your work

    (2014)
  • K. Rosengren et al.

    The social network: using Twitter to translate and disseminate evidence

    (2015)
  • P. Evans et al.

    Exploring the use of social media to measure journal article impact

    AMIA Annu Symp Proc

    (2011)
  • Petersen RE. Roles and Duties of a Member of Congress. 11-3-2010. Congressional Research Service. Available at:...
  • Glassman ME, Straus JR, Shogan CJ. Social Networking and Constituent Communication: Member Use of Twitter During a...
  • Cited by (46)

    • Antidepressants: A content analysis of healthcare providers' tweets

      2023, Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy
    • #Covid-19: An exploratory investigation of hashtag usage on Twitter

      2021, Health Policy
      Citation Excerpt :

      Furthermore, Twitter may be used to disseminate information of essential developments rapidly (e.g., described by Nesbitt et al. [3] for Multiple Sclerosis). Most health policy-makers have Twitter accounts, though their activity level varies [4]. Alrazaq et al. [5] call for the “need for stronger and more proactive public health presence on social media”.

    • Social media and health policy

      2019, Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing
    • Raising Climate Change Awareness Across Twitter

      2023, Journal of Environment and Development
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text