ArticleChiropractic & manual therapies2020
Misinformation about spinal manipulation and boosting immunity: an analysis of Twitter activity during the COVID-19 crisis.
Article in Chiropractic & manual therapies, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Understanding Exercise-Induced Hypoalgesia: An Umbrella Review of Scientific Evidence and Qualitative Content Analysis.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Assessment of Studies Evaluating Spinal Manipulative Therapy and Infectious Disease and Immune System Outcomes: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2021Pooled it
- Social media best practices for the spine care professional.North American Spine Society journal · 2025Article
- A new role for spinal manual therapy and for chiropractic? Part I: weaknesses and threats.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2024Article
- The role of digital surveillance during outbreaks: the Ghana experience from COVID-19 response.Journal of public health in Africa · 2023Article
- Complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine-specific COVID-19 misinformation on social media: A scoping review.Integrative medicine research · 2023Article
- What are the ways in which social media is used in the context of complementary and alternative medicine in the health and medical scholarly literature? a scoping review.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2023Article
- A two-year follow-up: Twitter activity regarding misinformation about spinal manipulation, chiropractic care and boosting immunity during the COVID-19 pandemic.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2023Article
- Impact of #PsychTwitter in promoting global psychiatry: A hashtag analysis study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- An exploratory study to understand how people use Twitter to share experiences or information about spinal stenosis.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2022Article
- What influences graduate medical students' beliefs of lower back pain? A mixed methods cross sectional study.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- The impact and public health response of chiropractors to the COVID-19 pandemic: a survey across four continents.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2022Article
- Colombian political leaders on Twitter during the Covid-19 pandemic.Latin American policy · 2022Article
- Tracking discussions of complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: a month-by-month sentiment analysis of Twitter data.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2022Article
- The causes, impacts and countermeasures of COVID-19 "Infodemic": A systematic review using narrative synthesis.Information processing & management · 2021Article
- The Networked Context of COVID-19 Misinformation: Informational Homogeneity on YouTube at the Beginning of the Pandemic.Online social networks and media · 2021Article
- Chiropractic conservatism among chiropractic students in Denmark: prevalence and consequences.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2020Article
- Informed consent, duty of disclosure and chiropractic: where are we?Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2020Review
- Maslow's hammer in integrative medicine: one size will never fit all.Advances in integrative medicine · 2020Article
- The importance of social media users' responses in tackling digital COVID-19 misinformation in Africa.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSocial media has become an increasingly important tool in monitoring the onset and spread of infectious diseases globally as well monitoring the spread of information about those diseases. This includes the spread of misinformation, which has been documented within the context of the emerging COVID-19 crisis. Understanding the creation, spread and uptake of social media misinformation is of critical importance to public safety. In this descriptive study, we detail Twitter activity regarding spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) and claims it increases, or "boosts", immunity. Spinal manipulation is a common intervention used by many health professions, most commonly by chiropractors. There is no clinical evidence that SMT improves human immunity.
methodsSocial media searching software (Talkwalker Quick Search) was used to describe Twitter activity regarding SMT and improving or boosting immunity. Searches were performed for the 3 months and 12 months before March 31, 2020 using terms related to 1) SMT, 2) the professions that most often provide SMT and 3) immunity. From these searches, we determined the magnitude and time course of Twitter activity then coded this activity into content that promoted or refuted a SMT/immunity link. Content themes, high-influence users and user demographics were then stratified as either promoting or refuting this linkage.
resultsTwitter misinformation regarding a SMT/immunity link increased dramatically during the onset of the COVID crisis. Activity levels (number of tweets) and engagement scores (likes + retweets) were roughly equal between content promoting or refuting a SMT/immunity link, however, the potential reach (audience) of tweets refuting a SMT/immunity link was 3 times higher than those promoting a link. Users with the greatest influence on Twitter, as either promoters or refuters, were individuals, not institutions or organizations. The majority of tweets promoting a SMT/immunity link were generated in the USA while the majority of refuting tweets originated from Canada.
conclusionTwitter activity about SMT and immunity increased during the COVID-19 crisis. Results from this work have the potential to help policy makers and others understand the impact of SMT misinformation and devise strategies to mitigate its impact.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.