Assessing Social Media Data as a Resource for Firearm Research: A Test Using Firearm Deaths (Preprint)
Year: 2022
Type: preprint
Abstract: BACKGROUND Historic constraints on research dollars and reliable information to support firearms research have limited scientific evidence on effective gun policy. At the same time, interest in the power and potential of social media analytics, particularly in health contexts, has surged. OBJECTIVE To contribute towards the goal of establishing a foundation for how social media data may best be used to improve the information base for firearm research. METHODS We examine the value of social media data for estimating a firearm outcome for which robust benchmark data exist—specifically, firearm mortality, which is captured in the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). We hand-curate tweet data from the Twitter Application Program Interface (API) spanning 2017-2018. We develop machine learning classifiers to identify tweets that pertain to firearm deaths and develop estimates of the volume of Twitter firearm discussion by month. We compare within-state variation over time in the volume of tweets pertaining to firearm deaths to within-state trends in NVSS-based estimates of firearm fatalities using Pearson’s linear correlations. RESULTS The correlation between the monthly number of firearm fatalities measured by NVSS and the monthly volume of firearm death tweets was weak (median=+0.081) and highly dispersed across states, with a range from -0.31 to +0.535. The median correlation between month-to-month changes in firearm fatalities in NVSS versus discussed in tweets was moderate (median= +0.30) and exhibited less dispersion among states (range=-0.06 to +0.69). CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that Twitter data may hold value for tracking dynamics in gun-related outcomes in certain locations. This is likely to be especially important for historically less well-measured outcomes, such as firearm injuries, for which data constraints have been particularly binding. This research provides an important building block for future work that continues to develop the usefulness of social media data, alone or in conjunction with other data resources, to strengthen the information base on which firearm research relies.
Authors: Lisa Singh, Carole Roan Gresenz
Language: English
Subfield: Health
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4220808002