health

Using Twitter as a data source: An overview of current social media research tools

Curated on July 11, 2015December 11, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Wasim Ahmed at the LSE Impact Blog: “I have a social media research blog where I find and write about tools that can be used to capture and analyse data from social media platforms. My PhD looks at Twitter data for health, such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. I am increasingly asked why I am looking at Twitter, and what tools and methods there are of capturing and analysing data from other platforms such as Facebook, or even less traditional platforms such as Amazon book reviews. Brainstorming a couple of responses to this question by talking to members of the New Social Media New Social Science network, there are at least six reasons:

Twitter is a popular platform in terms of the media attention it receives and it therefore attracts more research due to its cultural status
Twitter makes it easier to find and follow conversations (i.e., by both its search feature and by tweets appearing in Google search results)
Twitter has hashtag norms which make it easier gathering, sorting, and expanding searches when collecting data
Twitter data is easy to retrieve as major incidents, news stories and events on Twitter are tend to be centred around a hashtag
The Twitter API is more open and accessible compared to other social media platforms, which makes Twitter more favourable to developers creating tools to access data. This consequently increases the availability of tools to researchers.
Many researchers themselves are using Twitter and because of their favourable personal experiences, they feel more comfortable with researching a familiar platform.

It is probable that a combination of response 1 to 6 have led to more research on Twitter. However, this raises another distinct but closely related question: when research is focused so heavily on Twitter, what (if any) are the implications of this on our methods?

As for the methods that are currently used in analysing Twitter data i.e., sentiment analysis, time series analysis (examining peaks in tweets), network analysis etc., can these be applied to other platforms or are different tools, methods and techniques required? In addition to qualitative methods such as content analysis, I have used the following four methods in analysing Twitter data for the purposes of my PhD, below I consider whether these would work for other social media platforms:

Sentiment analysis works well with Twitter data, as tweets are consistent in length (i.e., <= 140) would sentiment analysis work well with, for example Facebook data where posts may be longer?
Time series analysis is normally used when examining tweets overtime to see when a peak of tweets may occur, would examining time stamps in Facebook posts, or Instagram posts, for example, produce the same results? Or is this only a viable method because of the real-time nature of Twitter data?
Network analysis is used to visualize the connections between people and to better understand the structure of the conversation. Would this work as well on other platforms whereby users may not be connected to each other i.e., public Facebook pages?
Machine learning methods may work well with Twitter data due to the length of tweets (i.e., <= 140) but would these work for longer posts and for platforms that are not text based i.e., Instagram?

It may well be that at least some of these methods can be applied to other platforms, however they may not be the best methods, and may require the formulation of new methods, techniques, and tools.

So, what are some of the tools available to social scientists for social media data? In the table below I provide an overview of some the tools I have been using (which require no programming knowledge and can be used by social scientists):…(More)”

Democratising the Data Revolution

Curated on July 11, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jonathan Gray at Open Knowledge: “What will the “data revolution” do? What will it be about? What will it count? What kinds of risks and harms might it bring? Whom and what will it serve? And who will get to decide?

Today we are launching a new discussion paper on “Democratising the Data Revolution”, which is intended to advance thinking and action around civil society engagement with the data revolution. It looks beyond the disclosure of existing information, towards more ambitious and substantive forms of democratic engagement with data infrastructures.¹

It concludes with a series of questions about what practical steps institutions and civil society organisations might take to change what is measured and how, and how these measurements are put to work.

You can download the full PDF report here, or continue to read on in this blog post.

What Counts?

How might civil society actors shape the data revolution? In particular, how might they go beyond the question of what data is disclosed towards looking at what is measured in the first place? To kickstart discussion around this topic, we will look at three kinds of intervention: changing existing forms of measurement, advocating new forms of measurement and undertaking new forms of measurement.

Changing Existing Forms of Measurement

Rather than just focusing on the transparency, disclosure and openness of public information, civil society groups can argue for changing what is measured with existing data infrastructures. One example of this is recent campaigning around company ownership in the UK. Advocacy groups wanted to unpick networks of corporate ownership and control in order to support their campaigning and investigations around tax avoidance, tax evasion and illicit financial flows.

While the UK company register recorded information about “nominal ownership”, it did not include information about so-called “beneficial ownership”, or who ultimately benefits from the ownership and control of companies. Campaigners undertook an extensive programme of activities to advocate for changes and extensions to existing data infrastructures – including via legislation, software systems, and administrative protocols.²

Advocating New Forms of Measurement

As well as changing or recalibrating existing forms of measurement, campaigners and civil society organisations can make the case for the measurement of things which were not previously measured. For example, over the past several decades social and political campaigning has resulted in new indicators about many different issues – such as gender inequality, health, work, disability, pollution or education.³ In such cases activists aimed to establish a given indicator as important and relevant for public institutions, decision makers, and broader publics – in order to, for example, inform policy development or resource allocation.

Undertaking New Forms of Measurement

Historically, many civil society organisations and advocacy groups have collected their own data to make the case for action on issues that they work on – from human rights abuses to endangered species….(More)”

Helping the public sector get innovative while saving money

Curated on July 8, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

European Commission Press Release: “Innovation procurement is a public procurement practice according to which public authorities request businesses to develop or buy innovative products or services that fit these organisations’ specific needs. For example, it could help hospitals use e-health tools allowing doctors to monitor their patients’ condition from a distance; it could allow local authorities to improve traffic management in their region, hence reducing congestion and pollution, improving road safety and using the road network effectively; it could also help cities better manage street lighting to make roads safer and more attractive, while increasing energy efficiency; it could help public administration improve efficiency through the use of cloud solutions. Public Procurement in Europe represents a 19% of GDP in Europe -or around € 2,400 billion a year. Innovation procurement also helps boost smaller, more innovative companies, as it means using public procurement funds to buy products or services also from smaller suppliers who are trying to find new ways of dealing with specific needs.

The European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (EAFIP) initiative will help those in charge of public procurement design and implement processes to access such services.

More specifically:

it will provide them with a toolkit to help in the procedure;
It will offer training: 9 workshops, each dedicated to a different subject area such as health or transport will be organised across Europe, providing participants with good practice approaches and hands-on support. Events will be announced on this page;
It will raise awareness around public procurement of ICT solutions through 3 EU-wide events, where new ideas and initiatives for EU-wide cooperation on public procurement will be discussed….(More)

Creating Health in the 21st Century

Curated on July 8, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Leigh Carroll & Bridget B. Kelly at Stanford Social Innovation Review: “This series has explored what it means to create health, sketching a collective path to new systems that can contribute to health in the 21st century. The overarching message is that we in the health sector need to take community—people’s connections to each other and their places, and everything that arises from these connections—more seriously, and that all types of professionals can do this, whether in hospitals or philanthropies or grocery stores.

If we really take community and connectedness seriously, we will be vigilant about the extent to which we strengthen or disrupt it when developing health interventions. We will value the knowledge and assets that all people have to offer from their unique relationships with people and place. And ultimately, we will commit to building the power that communities have to create health themselves, beyond clinical services and public health interventions.

Unfortunately, the systems we have created, rather than the solutions we now need, often drive current approaches to improving health. We have garnered from contributors to the series a number of principles to guide us as we develop new ways of doing things, as well as concrete steps toward contributing to a culture that values connections and relationships as much as treatments and health campaigns.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Acknowledge that our success depends on each other. Creating health will happen among individuals and institutions, so we must set aside ego, trust others, and recognize that our individual knowledge is limited and our progress is collective.
Bring more voices to the table. It is vital to understand the dynamics and relationships within a given community. To do that, we must ensure that all who may be affected by and involved in carrying out an intervention have the opportunity to comfortably share their visions and concerns.
Expand what counts as knowledge. The insights that communities share often play second fiddle to what professionals and academics typically deem valuable. Putting them on a more equal footing influences what to implement, how to allocate resources, and conclusions about whether something “worked.”
Embrace emergence, including unpredictability. We must abandon the linear approach favored by traditional health care and embrace the unpredictable nature of community-driven interventions. We must learn and adapt in real time, and remember that unexpected outcomes are one way an intervention can succeed.
Value what people value. All too often we decide what to aim for and evaluate based on what we can easily measure. It is essential to flip this—to identify goals and then figure out ways of measuring progress toward them. …(More)

Government at a Glance 2015

Curated on July 8, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

New report and dataset by the OECD: “Government at a Glance provides readers with a dashboard of key indicators assembled with the goal of contributing to the analysis and international comparison of public sector performance. Indicators on government revenues, expenditures, and employment are provided alongside key output and outcome data in the sectors of education, health and justice. Government at a Glance also includes indicators on key governance and public management issues, such as transparency in governance, regulatory governance, public procurement and the implementation of employment and remuneration reforms since 2008. While measuring government performance has long been recognized as playing an important role in increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the public administration, following the economic crisis and fiscal tightening in many member countries, good indicators are needed more than ever to help governments make informed decisions regarding tough choices and help restore confidence in government institutions… (More)”

The science prize that’s making waves

Curated on July 5, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Gillian Tett at the Financial Times: “The Ocean Health XPrize reveals a new fashion among philanthropists’…There is another reason why the Ocean Health XPrize fascinates me: what it reveals about the new fashion among philanthropists for handing out big scientific prizes. The idea is not a new one: wealthy people and governments have been giving prizes for centuries. In 1714, for example, the British government passed the Longitude Act, establishing a board to offer reward money for innovation in navigation — the most money was won by John Harrison, a clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer.

But a fascinating shift has taken place in the prize-giving game. In previous decades, governments or philanthropists usually bestowed money to recognise past achievements, often in relation to the arts. In 2012, McKinsey, the management consultants, estimated that before 1991, 97 per cent of prize money was a “recognition” award — for example, the Nobel Prizes. Today, however, four-fifths of all prize money is “incentive” or “inducement” awards. This is because many philanthropists and government agencies have started staging competitions to spur innovation in different fields, particularly science.

The best known of these is the XPrize Foundation, initiated two decades ago by Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur. The original award, the Ansari XPrize, offered $10m to the first privately financed team to put a vehicle into space. Since then, the XPrize has spread its wings into numerous different fields, including education and life sciences. Indeed, having given $30m in prize money so far, it has another $70m of competitions running, including the Google Lunar XPrize, which is offering $30m to land a privately funded robot on the moon.

McKinsey estimates that if you look across the field of prize-giving around the world, “total funds available from large prizes have more than tripled over the last decade to reach $350m”, while the “total prize sector could already be worth as much as $1bn to $2bn”. The Ocean Health XPrize, in other words, is barely a drop in the prize-giving ocean.

Is this a good thing? Not always, it might seem. As the prizes proliferate, they can sometimes overlap. The money being awarded tends — inevitably — to reflect the pet obsessions of philanthropists, rather than what scientists themselves would like to explore. And even the people running the prizes admit that these only work when there is a clear problem to be solved….(More)”

Science to the people!

Curated on July 4, 2015July 19, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

John Magan, at Digital Agenda for Europe:” …I attended the 2nd Barcelona Citizen Science Day organised as part of the city’s Science Festival. The programme was full and varied and in itself a great example of the wonderful world of do-it-yourself, hands-on, accessible, practical science. A huge variety of projects (see below) was delivered with enthusiasm, passion, and energy!

The day was rounded off with a presentation by Public Lab who showed how a bit of technical ingenuity like cheap cameras on kites and balloons can be used to keep governments and large businesses more honest and accountable – for example, data they collected is being used in court cases against BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

But what was most striking is the empowerment that these Citizen Science projects give individuals to do things for themselves – to take measures to monitor, protect or improve their urban or rural environment; to indulge their curiosity or passions; to improve their finances; to work with others; to do good while having serious fun….If you want to have a deeper look, here are some of the many projects presented on a great variety of themes:

Water

Wildlife

bees in cities to monitor the urban environment,
gamification to motivate bird watchers
monitoring jellyfish on beaches
BioBlitzes for wildlife censuses
tackling mosquito infestations

Climate

climate science

Arts

using art to visualise waste and raise awareness
getting the public and artists to cooperate in exploring biotechnology

Public health

Human

mapping local activities
complex systems and human behaviour experiments
civic crowdfunding
social rehabilitation of former drug users through testing potato varieties and uses

A nice booklet capturing them is available and there’s aslo a summary in Catalan only.

Read more about citizen science in the European Commission….(More)”

Modernizing Informed Consent: Expanding the Boundaries of Materiality

Curated on June 23, 2015August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Nadia N. Sawicki: “Informed consent law’s emphasis on the disclosure of purely medical information – such as diagnosis, prognosis, and the risks and benefits of various treatment alternatives – does not accurately reflect modern understandings of how patients make medical decisions. Existing common law disclosure duties fail to capture a variety of non-medical factors relevant to patients, including information about the physician’s personal characteristics; the cost of treatment; the social implications of various health care interventions; and the legal consequences associated with diagnosis and treatment. Although there is a wealth of literature analyzing the merits of such disclosures in a few narrow contexts, there is little broader discussion and no consensus about whether there the doctrine of informed consent should be expanded to include information that may be relevant to patients but falls outside the traditional scope of medical materiality. This article seeks to fill that gap.
I offer a normative argument for expanding the scope of informed consent disclosure to include non-medical information that is within the physician’s knowledge and expertise, where the information would be material to the reasonable patient and its disclosure does not violate public policy. This proposal would result in a set of disclosure requirements quite different from the ones set by modern common law and legislation. In many ways, the range of required disclosures may become broader, particularly with respect to physician-specific information about qualifications, health status, and financial conflicts of interests. However, some disclosures that are currently required by statute (or have been proposed by commentators) would fall outside the scope of informed consent – most notably, information about support resources available in the abortion context; about the social, ethical, and legal implications of treatment; and about health care costs….(More)”

This App Lets You See The Tough Choices Needed To Balance Your City’s Budget

Curated on June 19, 2015May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Jay Cassano at FastCoExist: “Ask the average person on the street how much money their city spends on education or health care or police. Even the most well-informed probably won’t be able to come up with a dollar amount. That’s because even if you are interested, municipal budgets aren’t presented in a way that makes sense to ordinary people.

Balancing Act is a web app that displays a straightforward pie chart of a city’s budget, broken down into categories like pensions, parks & recreations, police, and education. But it doesn’t just display the current budget breakdown. It invites users to tweak it, expressing their own priorities, all while keeping the city in the black. Do you want your libraries to be better funded? Fine—but you’re going to have to raise property taxes to do it.

“Balancing Act provides a way for people to both understand what public entities are doing and then to weight that against the other possible things that government can do,” says Chris Adams, president of Engaged Public, a Colorado-based consulting firm that develops technology for government and non-profits. “Especially in this era of information, all of us have a responsibility to spend a bit of time understanding how our government is spending money on our behalf.”

Hartford, Connecticut is the first city in the country that is using Balancing Act. The city was facing a $49 million budget deficit this spring, and Mayor Pedro Segarra says he took input from citizens using Balancing Act. Meanwhile, in Engaged Public’s home state, residents can input their income to generate an itemized tax receipt and then tweak the Colorado state budget as they see fit.

Engaged Public hopes that by making budgets more interactive and accessible, more people will take an interest in them.

“Budget information almost universally exists, but it’s not in accessible formats—mostly they’re in PDF files,” says Adams. “So citizens are invited to pour through tens of thousands of pages of PDFs. But that really doesn’t give you a high-level understanding of what’s at stake in a reasonable amount of time.”

If widely used, Balancing Act could be a useful tool for politicians to check the pulse of their constituents. For example, decreasing funding to parks draws a negative public reaction. But if enough people on Balancing Act experimented with the budget, saw the necessity of it, and submitted their recommendations, then an elected might be willing to make a decision that would otherwise seem politically risky….(More)”