This document discusses using social media data to track hay fever seasons and medication effectiveness in real-time. The author analyzed over 130,000 tweets mentioning "hayfever" or "hay fever" from June 2012 to April 2013. The geotagged tweets matched known pollen patterns in the UK. This suggests social media could provide a low-cost way for researchers and sufferers to identify local hay fever outbreaks and seasons. It may also provide insights into how effective medications are in relieving symptoms.

1. Potential of Social
Media to determine
hay fever seasons and
drug efficacy
Dr Ed de Quincey, University of Greenwich
Dr Thomas Pantin, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust
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Photo by Maja Dumat

2. Dr Ed de Quincey @eddequincey
Principal Lecturer, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Head of the Web 2.0/Social Web for Learning Research Group, eCentre
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http://www2.gre.ac.uk/research/centres/ecentre/research-groups/web-2.0

3. Hay fever or seasonal allergic rhinitis
is a common allergic condition
(Emberlin, 2010), defined as an
Immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated
inflammatory response of the nasal
lining following exposure to an
allergen (Bousquet et al., 2008).
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Photo by Mislav Marohnić

4. The current UK hay
fever prevalence is
between 20-25% of
the population,
projected to rise to
39% by 2030
(Emberlin, 2010).
Photo from “Hayfever hotspots: As pollen counts rise, our
unique British map tells you where to avoid”
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1015294/Hayfever-hotspots-Aspollen-counts-rise-unique-British-map-reveals-avoid.html

5. Surges in incidence of allergic rhinitis in
spring and summer are commonly
known as the hay fever season, with
the main pollens in the UK being birch
pollen, March to mid May, and
grass pollen, late May to August
(Emberlin, 2010).
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6. The Meteorological
Office (Met Office)
provide weekly pollen
forecasts and the
Royal College of
General
Practitioners (RCGP)
produce weekly
service reports.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/
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7. For researchers and sufferers of hay
fever, there is currently no method
for identifying real-time,
geolocated hay fever incidence.
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Photo by “A Guy Taking Pictures”

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9. 500 million registered accounts
340 million tweets per day
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10. A promising approach in the related field
of Epidemiological Intelligence to detect
seasonal illnesses is the use of Social Media
(de Quincey & Kostkova, 2010). By collecting
incidences of users self reporting illnesses
on twitter, it has been shown that
outbreaks can be predicted 1-2 weeks
before RCGP data indicates (Szomszor et al, 2012).
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12. “1486 following, 283 followers and 134
updates and 36 direct messages to
hayfever sufferers on Twitter”
http://www.figarodigital.co.uk/case-study/Kleenex.aspx
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13. 2nd GRF One Health Summit 2013
http://www.socialslurp.co.uk/benadryl-pollen-hotspot-goes-tits-up/

15. “hayfever” and “hay fever”
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16. Since 20th June 2012 and 2nd April 2013
130,233 tweets
88,747 distinct users
76% only posted one tweet
83.5% “Hayfever”
16.5% “Hay fever”
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17. Distribution of geolocated tweets posted June 2012 to
April 2013 containing the terms “hayfever” or “hay fever”.
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18. Distribution similar to Pollen Calendars produced by the National Pollen
and Aerobiology Research Unit, with peaks in June/July, reductions
through August/September, no pollen from October to January and
then a rise in March
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19. From all tweets collected 23%
contained hashtags
#hayfever (6,991)
#itchyeyes (326)
#f@ckoff (293)
#dying (266)
#fml (264)
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20. Other hashtags relating to symptoms
#sneeze;
#cantstopsneezing;
#sneezing; #achoo;
#soreeyes; #puffyeyes;
#sneezy; #sniff and #sniffles
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21. Self-reporting phrases
“I have hayfever” (1,006)
“I have hay fever” (332)
“my hayfever” (6,707)
“my hay fever” (1,124)
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22. 5,254 tweets related to
medication were found
(containing terms such as “medicine”; “tablets”;
“meds”; “medication”; “pill’; “spray” and “drugs”).
437 tweets related to
drug efficacy
(“tablets don’t work” and “the pills don’t work”)
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Photo by e-Magine Art

23. Only 3,924
tweets (3%) had
a precise longitude and
latitude.
All tweets however
contained an
approximate
location
e.g. 16,365 were posted from
a profile that had a location
set as “London”.
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Map Source Professor Jean Emberlin, PollenUK

25. “Thank you for sight of your map. It matches what I would
expect to see, broadly fewer instances of pollen being
registered in Scotland, more in the south and southeast of
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England.” SummitPeter Burt, Biometeorologist
- Dr 2013

26. The higher
level of granularity that twitter enables for temporal analysis
means that daily peaks of hay fever incidence can be
identified in real time along with potentially pinpointing more
accurate start and end dates of the seasons within
different parts of the UK.
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27. For comparison the
Met Office
offered to provide
Daily stats from
March 2011 up until
May 2013 for 18
UK locations at a
cost of £12,100 +
Vat
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