R.A. Bentley
A rapid method for assessing social versus independent interest in health issues: A case study of 'bird flu' And 'swine flu'
Bentley, R.A.; Ormerod, P.
Authors
P. Ormerod
Abstract
Effective communication strategies regarding health issues are affected by the way in which the public obtain their knowledge, particularly whether people become interested independently, or through their social networks. This is often investigated through localized ethnography or surveys. In rapidly-evolving situations, however, there may also be a need for swift, case-specific assessment as a guide to initial strategy development. With this aim, we analyze real-time online data, provided by the new ‘Google Trends’ tool, concerning Internet search frequency for health-related issues. To these data we apply a simple model to characterise the effective degree of social transmission versus decisions made individually. As case examples, we explore two rapidly-evolved issues, namely the world-wide interest in avian influenza, or ‘bird flu’, in 2005, and in H1N1, or ‘swine flu’, from late April to early May 2009. The 2005 ‘bird flu’ scare demonstrated almost pure imitation for two months initially, followed by a spike of independent decision that corresponded with an announcement by US president George Bush. For ‘swine flu’ in 2009, imitation was the more prevalent throughout. Overall, the results show how interest in health scares can spread primarily by social means, and that engaging more independent decisions at the population scale may require a dramatic announcement to push a populace over the ‘tipping point’.
Citation
Bentley, R., & Ormerod, P. (2010). A rapid method for assessing social versus independent interest in health issues: A case study of 'bird flu' And 'swine flu'. Social Science & Medicine, 71(3), 482-485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.042
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Aug 1, 2010 |
Deposit Date | Jun 29, 2010 |
Journal | Social science and medicine |
Print ISSN | 0277-9536 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 71 |
Issue | 3 |
Pages | 482-485 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.03.042 |
Keywords | Intervention, Tipping points, H1N1, Influenza, Social networks, Time series, Modelling, 'Bird flu', 'swine flu', Health scares. |
You might also like
Population-level neutral model already explains linguistic patterns
(2011)
Journal Article
The selectivity of social learning and the tempo of cultural evolution
(2011)
Journal Article
Evolving social influence in large populations
(2011)
Journal Article
Independent cultural evolution of two song traditions in the chestnut-sided warbler
(2010)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search