Presenting Author: Matthew Kearney, MPH, DrPH(c) Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health

ABSTRACT

Background: Many organizations now use social media to communicate with a variety of audiences. While schools of public health have an opportunity to share both school and health information, no study has examined social media use of public health schools.

Methods: Publicly available tweets (n=33,287) from accredited public health schools with registered Twitter accounts (n=55) were collected for a 10-month period between August 2015 and June 2016. A codebook was developed and a subsample of tweets (n=150) was double-coded. Differences in coding were resolved through group consensus. Descriptive statistical analysis was conducted for the full sample.

Results: The median tweets per school was 1143 (IQR: 527 - 2806). Median followers per school was 7021 (IQR: 1421 - 14239). Ten schools accounted for 48% of tweets. 71% of tweets collected were original content and not retweets. Content analysis revealed that a majority of tweets targeted a general audience (56%), while 26% were school-specific (i.e. students, faculty, and alumni). Tweet content discussed school news and events (47%), health information (21%), and research (13%).

Conclusion: Preliminary findings suggest that a small group of users account for the greatest activity on twitter. Twitter communication appears to disseminate information through school-focused lens, as opposed to public health knowledge and awareness more generally. Given the urban setting in which many schools exist, health communication could be tailored to reach audiences beyond students, faculty, and alumni. Next steps include classifying our full sample of tweets to gain a more robust understanding of Twitter communication.

Authors: Matthew Kearney, MPH, DrPH(c); Jennifer Manganello, PhD, MPH; Alex Budenz, MA, DrPH(c); and Philip Massey, PhD.