Twitter lends insight to HPV-associated oral cancer knowledge
Source: www.oncnursingnews.com Author: Brielle Benyon The incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oral cancer has risen in recent years, and the virus has now surpassed tobacco and alcohol use as the leading cause of the disease. In fact, while the HPV vaccine is typically associated with preventing cervical cancer, there have been more cases of HPV-associated oral cancer than there have been cervical cancer.1 While the link between oral cancer and HPV may be well-known to healthcare professionals, researchers at Howard University recently took to Twitter to get a glimpse into the public’s knowledge about the topic. “By looking at the social media data, we wanted to know what people are hearing about oral cancer – especially HPV-caused oral cancer,” study co-author Jae Eun Chung, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Strategic, Legal & Management Communication at Howard University, said. “We wanted to see what the gaps are between the knowledge of the healthcare professionals and the public.” The researchers collected 3,229 unique tweets over the course of 40 weeks using search terms such as “HPV or papilloma” and “mouth or oral or throat or pharyngeal or oropharyngeal.” They then used a program called nVivo 12.0 to conduct a content analysis that looked at certain phrasing, terms, and themes that commonly appeared. More than half (54%; 1679 total) of the tweets had information about prevention, while 29% (910) were about the causes of oral cancer. Far fewer tweets were about treatment (5%; 141), diagnosis (3%; 97), symptoms (1%; 42), and [...]