Twitter Used to Monitor Dental Pain

As social media becomes more ubiquitous, researchers are discovering how to use it to address medical issues. Specifically, researchers from the International and American Associations for Dental Research recently teamed up to use Twitter to survey users tweeting about toothaches or other issues related to dental health.

The researchers analyzed 772 tweets out of 4859 tweets regarding dental issues, collected over 7 nonconsecutive days. After each tweet was coded according to its content, researchers found that most of the individuals were simply making a “general statement” regarding dental pain. About 14% had tweeted in hopes of finding advice for treatment from other users.

The study is the first of its kind, but many believe that Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media will someday be useful in public health surveillance. The data collected could shed light on the origin of some illnesses, treatments that are growing or declining in popularity, and data on populations who are susceptible to sickness.