Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27888168›Full record

ArticleJMIR public health and surveillance2016

Estimating the Duration of Public Concern After the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station Accident From the Occurrence of Radiation Exposure-Related Terms on Twitter: A Retrospective Data Analysis.

Naoki Nishimoto, Mizuki Ota, Ayako Yagahara, Katsuhiko Ogasawara

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in JMIR public health and surveillance, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. How Italy Tweeted about COVID-19: Detecting Reactions to the Pandemic from Social Media.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
    Article
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4 · The record

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PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Naoki Nishimoto *Kagawa University HospitalClinical Research Support CenterKita-gunJapan.ORCID 0000-0002-7638-8967
Mizuki Ota *Hokkaido UniversityGraduate School of Health SciencesSapporoJapan.ORCID 0000-0001-7383-3669
Ayako Yagahara *Faculty of Health SciencesDepartment of Radiological TechnologyHokkaido University of ScienceSapporoJapan.ORCID 0000-0003-3364-7719
Katsuhiko OgasawaraHokkaido UniversityFaculty of Health Science SchoolSapporoJapan.ORCID 0000-0001-5474-7861

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAfter the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station accident in Japan on March 11, 2011, a large number of comments, both positive and negative, were posted on social media.

objectiveThe objective of this study was to clarify the characteristics of the trend in the number of tweets posted on Twitter, and to estimate how long public concern regarding the accident continued. We surveyed the attenuation period of the first term occurrence related to radiation exposure as a surrogate endpoint for the duration of concern.

methodsWe retrieved 18,891,284 tweets from Twitter data between March 11, 2011 and March 10, 2012, containing 143 variables in Japanese. We selected radiation, radioactive, Sievert (Sv), Becquerel (Bq), and gray (Gy) as keywords to estimate the attenuation period of public concern regarding radiation exposure. These data, formatted as comma-separated values, were transferred into a Statistical Analysis System (SAS) dataset for analysis, and survival analysis methodology was followed using the SAS LIFETEST procedure. This study was approved by the institutional review board of Hokkaido University and informed consent was waived.

resultsA Kaplan-Meier curve was used to show the rate of Twitter users posting a message after the accident that included one or more of the keywords. The term Sv occurred in tweets up to one year after the first tweet. Among the Twitter users studied, 75.32% (880,108/1,168,542) tweeted the word radioactive and 9.20% (107,522/1,168,542) tweeted the term Sv. The first reduction was observed within the first 7 days after March 11, 2011. The means and standard errors (SEs) of the duration from the first tweet on March 11, 2011 were 31.9 days (SE 0.096) for radioactive and 300.6 days (SE 0.181) for Sv. These keywords were still being used at the end of the study period. The mean attenuation period for radioactive was one month, and approximately one year for radiation and radiation units. The difference in mean duration between the keywords was attributed to the effect of mass media. Regularly posted messages, such as daily radiation dose reports, were relatively easy to detect from their time and formatted contents. The survival estimation indicated that public concern about the nuclear power plant accident remained after one year.

conclusionsAlthough the simple plot of the number of tweets did not show clear results, we estimated the mean attenuation period as approximately one month for the keyword radioactive, and found that the keywords were still being used in posts at the end of the study period. Further research is required to quantify the effect of other phrases in social media data. The results of this exploratory study should advance progress in influencing and quantifying the communication of risk.

Indexed as

infodemiologyKaplan-Meier estimatenuclear power plantspublic concernradiationsocial mediasurvival analysisTwitter

Identifiers

PMID27888168
PMCPMC5148809

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.