Twitter’s Surprising Reaction to the Meningitis Outbreak

When a dangerous disease outbreak hits social media, the connected generation trusts some governmental agencies more than others, and Twitter users tend not to panic. These are the main takeaways of an analysis of tweets sent in the past month in regards to the recent meningitis outbreak. The data was collected by iMedSocial, a social media consultancy in public health industries, using SDL|SM2, a tool that analyzes tweets and other social media.

Looking at tweets sent after news of the outbreak came out, Twitter users searched for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more often than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The meningitis outbreak, which was first reported on Sept.18, in Tennessee, is caused by a contaminated steroid drug which was injected into the spines of patients who had back pain. The disease was caused by a fungus contained in a drug produced by the New England Compounding Center, a compounding pharmacy that produces drugs that are not under the same scrutiny as the ones produced by regular pharmaceutical companies. The fungal meningitis has been detected in 14 states thus far and experts believe that the number of cases could still increase as the CDC believes 14,000 people may have received the potentially infected injections.

As of today, there have been 205 confirmed infections and 15 deaths due to the outbreak.

Despite the fact that the FDA is the federal authority which oversees drugs and medication and that, in this particular case, this particular type of meningitis isn’t contagious, the Twitterverse isn’t lookig at the FDA. Instead, it is turning to the CDC, whose mission is to contain and fight infections and viruses.

What’s more, despite the alarming death tool, panic hasn’t spread yet.

For D’vorah Graeser, who holds a Ph.D in pharmacology and is the CEO of iMedSocia, both findings are surprising. “It was really startling that there was such a huge difference that in fact people were turning to the CDC by such a wide margin,” she tells Mashable.

In fact, from Sept. 9 to Oct. 10, “CDC” has been searched 13,019 times, while “FDA” was searched only 3,722 times. Graeser thinks this proves how much people respect and look to the CDC when it comes to infectious disease, even if, in this particular case, the illness is not actually infectious.

Also unexpectedly, according to her, Twitter netizens didn’t let the dramatic circumstances drive their online conversations. “In this case in social media, I personally did not see panic, I saw a very thoughtful conversation,” even if Twitter is doesn’t provide much room to state complicated thoughts.

Graeser is interested in the role of social media in matters of public health because she believes that looking at what people write online is the best way to find out what people really think. She also believes that the spread of social media gives the truth a better chance to emerge. “One advantage of having such a widespread [use] of social media,” she says. “It’s that it is easier, in my opinion, for the correct factual information to become more popular.”

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Despite the public taking their concerns and getting informed on social media, government authorities are not taking advantage of the situation. According to Graeser, neither the CDC nor the FDA are “engaging as much directly with the public as they could.”

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