Posts provide valuable feedback during public consultation for health guidelines
Guidelines provide important information on key health behaviours that can influence the population, with public consultation forming an important part of guideline development.1 Public consultation provides transparency, while improving the quality, legitimacy and acceptability of guidelines to the public.1 Although the public are encouraged to provide formal feedback, they may also discuss and provide valuable feedback on popular social networking sites such as Twitter and Reddit. Social networking sites are universal, with 5.8 million Australians using Twitter and 110 000 using Reddit each month.2 Given that a number of these posts are publicly available, they can be used to answer research questions and track health behaviours,3,4,5 and may be an informative source of feedback on health guidelines during public consultation.6
The full article is accessible to AMA members and paid subscribers. Login to read more or purchase a subscription now.
Please note: institutional and Research4Life access to the MJA is now provided through Wiley Online Library.
- 1. National Health and Medical Research Council. 2016 NHMRC standards for guidelines. Canberra: NHMRC, 2016 https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelinesforguidelines/standards (viewed Mar 2020).
- 2. Social Media Statistics Australia — October 2020. Social Media News Australia, 2020; 1 Oct. https://www.socialmedianews.com.au/social-media-statistics-australia-october-2020/ (viewed Dec 2020).
- 3. Riordan B, Merrill J, Ward R. “Can’t wait to blackout tonight”: an analysis of the motives to drink to blackout expressed on Twitter. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2019; 43: 1769–1776.
- 4. Cavazos‐Rehg PA, Krauss MJ, Sowles S, et al. A content analysis of depression‐related Tweets. Comput Human Behav 2016; 54: 351–357.
- 5. Curtis B, Giorgi S, Buffone AEK, et al. Can Twitter be used to predict county excessive alcohol consumption rates? PLoS One 2018; 13: e0194290.
- 6. Stautz K, Bignardi G, Hollands GJ, Marteau TM. Reactions on Twitter to updated alcohol guidelines in the UK: a content analysis. BMJ Open 2017; 7: e015493.
- 7. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. International health data comparisons, 2018 (AIHW Cat. No: PHE 237). Canberra: AIHW, 2018. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/phe/237/international-health-data-comparisons-2018/contents/health-risk-factors (viewed Feb 2020).
- 8. National Health and Medical Research Council. Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol. Canberra: NHMRC, 2020: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-guidelines-reduce-health-risks-drinking-alcohol (viewed Dec 2020).
- 9. Kearney M, Heiss A, Briatte F. Package ‘rtweet’. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rtweet/rtweet.pdf (viewed Dec 2019).
- 10. Rivera I. Package ‘RedditExtractoR’. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RedditExtractoR/RedditExtractoR.pdf (viewed Dec 2019).
- 11. Wojcik S, Hughes A. Sizing up Twitter users. 24 Apr 2019. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/ (viewed Mar 2020).
- 12. Barthel M, Stocking G, Holcomb J, Mitchell A. Reddit news users more likely to be male, young and digital in their news preferences. 25 Feb 2016. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2016. https://www.journalism.org/2016/02/25/reddit-news-users-more-likely-to-be-male-young-and-digital-in-their-news-preferences/ (viewed Mar 2020).
- 13. Mervis J. Privacy concerns could derail Facebook data‐sharing plan. Science 2019; 365: 1360–1361.
- 14. Bastos M, Walker ST. Facebook’s data lockdown is a disaster for academic researchers. The Conversation 2018; 11 Apr. https://theconversation.com/facebooks-data-lockdown-is-a-disaster-for-academic-researchers-94533 (viewed Apr 2020).
No relevant disclosures.