Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30742873›Full record

ArticlePreventive medicine2019

Feasibility of using social media to monitor outdoor air pollution in London, England.

Yulin Hswen, Qiuyuan Qin, John S Brownstein, Jared B Hawkins

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Preventive medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
11citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  6. Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

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.

Yulin HswenDepartment of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA; Informatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: yuh958@mail.harvard.edu.
Qiuyuan QinInformatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Statistics, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
John S BrownsteinInformatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Jared B HawkinsInformatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Funding

TrainingU54HG007963 · NHGRI · HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL · PI KOHANE, ISAAC S., MURPHY, SHAWN N · 2014 to 2018
$18.3M
A Platform for Modeling the Global Impact of Climate Change on Infectious DiseaseR01LM010812 · NLM · BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL · PI BROWNSTEIN, JOHN S. · 2010 to 2015
$2.5M
CIHRNHGRI NIH HHS U54 HG007963NLM NIH HHS R01 LM010812
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Air pollution is a serious public health concern. Innovative and scalable methods for detecting harmful air pollutants such as PM2.5 are necessary. This study assessed the feasibility of using social media to monitor outdoor air pollution in an urban area by comparing data from Twitter and validating it against established air monitoring stations. Data were collected from London, England from July 29, 2016 to March 17, 2017. Daily mean PM2.5 data was downloaded from the LondonAir platform consisting of 26 air pollution monitoring sites throughout Greater London. Publicly available tweets geo-located to Greater London containing air pollution terms were captured from the Twitter platform. Tweets with media URL links were excluded to minimize influence of news stories. Sentiment of the tweets was examined as negative, positive, or neutral. Cross-correlation analyses were used to compare the relationship between trends of tweets about air pollution and levels of PM2.5 over time. There were 16,448 tweets without a media URL link, with a mean of 498.42 (SD = 491.08) tweets per week. A significant cross-correlation coefficient of 0.803 was observed between PM2.5 data and the non-media air pollution tweets (p < 0.001). The cross-correlation coefficient was highest between PM2.5 data and air pollution tweets with negative sentiment at 0.816 (p < 0.001). Discussions about air pollution on Twitter reflect particle PM2.5 pollution levels in Greater London. This study highlights that social media may offer a supplemental source to support the detection and monitoring of air pollution in a densely populated urban area.

Indexed as

Air PollutantsAir PollutionEnglandEnvironmental MonitoringFeasibility StudiesHumansLondonParticulate MatterSocial MediaAir PollutantsParticulate MatterAir pollutionLondonPM2.5Social mediaSurveillanceTwitterUrban area

Identifiers

PMID30742873
PMCPMC7316422

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

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.