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Twitter used to track mental health trends

Research scientists have begun using Twitter data to examine trends in bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder and seasonal affective disorder, according to a press release.

The Johns Hopkins University researchers reviewed more than 8 billion tweets using word cues linked to anxiety and insomnia, and classified the messages to conduct their analysis.

Mark H. Dredze

The same tracking technique was developed to look for trends in influenza outbreaks, according to the press release.

“Using Twitter to get a fix on mental health cases could be very helpful to health practitioners and governmental officials who need to decide where counseling and other care is needed most,” Mark H. Dredze, PhD, assistant research professor in the Whiting School of Engineering’s Department of Computer Science, said in the press release. “It could point to places where many veterans may be experiencing PTSD, for example, or to towns where people have been traumatized by a shooting spree or widespread tornado damage.”

The research has been presented at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston, and two other conferences in Baltimore and Ann Arbor, Mich.

For more information:

Coppersmith G. Quantifying Mental Health Signals in Twitter. ACL Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology. 2014.

Coppersmith G. Measuring Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Twitter. International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. 2014.

http://www.socialmediahealthresearch.org/