Twitter is a messaging system that allows its users to update others on their status through simple, 140-character messages. Users can update their status from the web, through their phone, or through many services that can help you "tweet". A "public time line" of tweets is maintained by Twitter. It is updated in near-real-time, so you can see the status of a lot of Tweeter users. How does this relate to public health? Twitter's search option has the ability to filter the public time line by certain terms. I then took the RSS (real simple syndication) of that search and posted it here. Below, you can read the "tweets" (status updates) of Twitter users as they relate to certain terms... First, the status updates mentioning "FLU" in any part of the update, and the users are located only in Maryland. Next, you can see the status updates from the CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response. This is a good tool to see what people who use Twitter (projected to hit 8 million as of the time I published this page) are talking about and/or doing. To refresh the tweets, just hit your browser's refresh button. Maryland Flu Tweets
CDC Emergency Tweets
|