The top 100 Twitter influencers in cardiology

Onoriode Kesiena; Henry K Onyeaka; Setri Fugar; Alexis K Okoh; Annabelle Santos Volgman; Onoriode Kesiena; Henry K Onyeaka; Setri Fugar; Alexis K Okoh; Annabelle Santos Volgman

doi:10.3934/publichealth.2021058

AIMS Public Health

2021, Volume 8, Issue 4: 743-753. doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2021058

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Brief report Special Issues

The top 100 Twitter influencers in cardiology

Running title: Cardiology influencers on Twitter

1.
Department of Internal Medicine, Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center, Athens, USA
2.
Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital/Mclean, Boston, USA
3.
Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, USA
4.
Division of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Research Unit, RWJ Barnabas Health, NBIMC, Newark, New Jersey, USA

Received: 30 August 2021 Accepted: 20 October 2021 Published: 26 October 2021

Importance
Twitter represents a growing aspect of the social media experience and is a widely used tool for public education in the 21^st century. In the last few years, there has been concern about the dissemination of false health information on social media. It is therefore important that we assess the influencers of this health information in the field of cardiology.

Objective
We sought to identify the top 100 Twitter influencers within cardiology, characterize them, and examine the relationship between their social media activity and academic influence.

Design
Twitter topic scores for the topic search “cardiology” were queried on May 01, 2020 using the Right Relevance application programming interface (API). Based on their scores, the top 100 influencers were identified. Among the cardiologists, their academic h-indices were acquired from Scopus and these scores were compared to the Twitter topic scores.

Result
We found out that 88/100 (88%) of the top 100 social media influencers on Twitter were cardiologists. Of these, 63/88 (72%) were males and they practiced mostly in the United States with 50/87 (57%) practicing primarily in an academic hospital. There was a moderately positive correlation between the h-index and the Twitter topic score, r = +0.32 (p-value 0.002).

Conclusion
Our study highlights that the top ranked cardiology social media influencers on Twitter are board-certified male cardiologists practicing in academic settings in the US. The most influential on Twitter have a moderate influence in academia. Further research should evaluate the relationship between other academic indices and social media influence.
- Twitter,
- cardiology,
- influence,
- h-index
Citation: Onoriode Kesiena, Henry K Onyeaka, Setri Fugar, Alexis K Okoh, Annabelle Santos Volgman. The top 100 Twitter influencers in cardiology[J]. AIMS Public Health, 2021, 8(4): 743-753. doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2021058

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Abstract

Importance

Twitter represents a growing aspect of the social media experience and is a widely used tool for public education in the 21^st century. In the last few years, there has been concern about the dissemination of false health information on social media. It is therefore important that we assess the influencers of this health information in the field of cardiology.

Objective

We sought to identify the top 100 Twitter influencers within cardiology, characterize them, and examine the relationship between their social media activity and academic influence.

Design

Twitter topic scores for the topic search “cardiology” were queried on May 01, 2020 using the Right Relevance application programming interface (API). Based on their scores, the top 100 influencers were identified. Among the cardiologists, their academic h-indices were acquired from Scopus and these scores were compared to the Twitter topic scores.

Result

We found out that 88/100 (88%) of the top 100 social media influencers on Twitter were cardiologists. Of these, 63/88 (72%) were males and they practiced mostly in the United States with 50/87 (57%) practicing primarily in an academic hospital. There was a moderately positive correlation between the h-index and the Twitter topic score, r = +0.32 (p-value 0.002).

Conclusion

Our study highlights that the top ranked cardiology social media influencers on Twitter are board-certified male cardiologists practicing in academic settings in the US. The most influential on Twitter have a moderate influence in academia. Further research should evaluate the relationship between other academic indices and social media influence.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

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