Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38296602›Full record

Observational studyBMJ paediatrics open2024

Analysis of tweets discussing the risk of Mpox among children and young people in school (May-October 2022): a retrospective observational study.

Ben Knudsen, Tracy Beth Høeg, Vinay Prasad

Open access · diamondAbstract readObservational Study
In one paragraph

Observational study in BMJ paediatrics open, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.9field-weighted citation impact, top 30% of its field
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

1 citing paper in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
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

3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Ben KnudsenThe George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-9709-3076
Tracy Beth HøegEpidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
Vinay PrasadEpidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA Vinayak.prasad@ucsf.edu.
George Washington University · USUniversity of California, San Francisco · USUniversity of Southern Denmark · DK

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo determine the number of tweets discussing the risk of Mpox to children and young people in school and (1) determine accuracy, (2) for inaccurate tweets, determine if risk was minimised or exaggerated and (3) describe the characteristics of the accounts and tweets which contained accurate versus inaccurate information.

designRetrospective observational study.

settingTwitter advanced search in January 2023 of tweets spanning 18 May 2022-19 September 2022.

participantsAccounts labelled as: MD, DO, nurse, pharmacist, physical therapist, other healthcare provider, PhD, MPH, Ed. degree, JD, health/medicine/public policy reporter (including students or candidates) who tweeted about the risk of Mpox to children and young people in school. EXPOSURES: Tweets containing the keywords 'school' and 'mpox', 'pox', or 'monkeypox' from May to October 2022. MEASURES: (1) The total and ratio of accurate versus inaccurate tweets, the latter further subdivided by exaggerating or minimising risk, and stratified by account author credential type. (2) The total likes, retweets and follower counts by accurate versus inaccurate tweets, by month and account credentials. (3) Twitter user exposure to inaccurate versus accurate tweets was estimated.

results262 tweets were identified. 215/262 (82%) were inaccurate and 215/215 (100%) of these exaggerated risks. 47/262 (18%) tweets were accurate. There were 163 (87%) unique authors of inaccurate tweets and 25 (13%) of accurate tweets. Among healthcare professionals, 86% (95/111) of tweets were inaccurate. Multiplying accuracy by followers and retweets, Twitter users were approximately 974× more likely to encounter inaccurate than accurate information.

conclusionCredentialed Twitter users were 4.6 times more likely to tweet inaccurate than accurate messages. We also demonstrated how incorrect tweets can be quickly amplified by retweets and popular accounts. In the case of Mpox in children and young people, incorrect information always exaggerated risks.

Indexed as

Mpox, MonkeypoxSocial MediaAdolescentChildHealth PersonnelHumansPublic PolicyRetrospective StudiesEpidemiology

Identifiers

PMID38296602
PMCPMC10831422
OpenAlexW4391406838

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC
Read underepoch 390

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.