1 research outputs found
Mining Social Media for Perceptions and Trends on HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is an approach for
preventing the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which entails
the administration of antiretroviral medication to high-risk
seronegative persons. If taken correctly, PrEP can reduce HIV
infection risk by more than 90%. The aim of this study was to
identify and examine PrEP-related perceptions and trends
discussed on Twitter. Using open-source technologies,
text-mining and interactive visualisation techniques, a
comprehensive data gathering and analytics Web-based platform
was developed to facilitate the study objectives. Our results
demonstrate that monitoring of PrEP-related discussions on
Twitter can be detected over time and valuable insights can be
obtained concerning issues of PrEP awareness, expressed
opinions, perceived barriers and key discussion points on its
adoption. The proposed platform could support public-health
professionals and policy makers in PrEP monitoring, facilitating
informed decision making and strategy planning for efficient HIV
combination prevention