School of Allied Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne3086, Australia.
School of Behavioural and Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne3065, Australia.
Public Health Nutr. 2021 Apr;24(6):1193-1209. doi: 10.1017/S1368980020005248. Epub 2020 Dec 23.
Social media analytics (SMA) has a track record in business research. The utilisation in nutrition research is unknown, despite social media being populated with real-time eating behaviours. This rapid review aimed to explore the use of SMA in nutrition research with the investigation of dietary behaviours.
The review was conducted according to rapid review guidelines by WHO and the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. Five databases of peer-reviewed, English language studies were searched using the keywords 'social media' in combination with 'data analytics' and 'food' or 'nutrition' and screened for those with general population health using SMA on public domain, social media data between 2014 and 2020.
The review identified 34 studies involving SMA in the investigation of dietary behaviours. Nutrition topics included population nutrition health investigations, alcohol consumption, dieting and eating out of the home behaviours. All studies involved content analysis with evidence of surveillance and engagement. Twitter was predominant with data sets in tens of millions. SMA tools were observed in data discovery, collection and preparation, but less so in data analysis. Approximately, a third of the studies involved interdisciplinary collaborations with health representation and only two studies involved nutrition disciplines. Less than a quarter of studies obtained formal human ethics approval.
SMA in nutrition research with the investigation of dietary behaviours is emerging, nevertheless, if consideration is taken with technological capabilities and ethical integrity, the future shows promise at a broad population census level and as a scoping tool or complementary, triangulation instrument.
社交媒体分析（SMA）在商业研究中已有应用记录。尽管社交媒体上充斥着实时的饮食行为，但在营养研究中的利用情况尚不清楚。本快速综述旨在探索 SMA 在营养研究中的应用，以调查饮食行为。
本综述按照世界卫生组织和国家合作中心的方法和工具快速审查指南进行。使用关键词“社交媒体”与“数据分析”以及“食物”或“营养”相结合，在五个同行评审的英文数据库中搜索了 SMA 对 2014 年至 2020 年期间公共领域社交媒体数据中普通人群健康的使用情况，并进行了筛选。
本综述共识别出 34 项研究，这些研究涉及 SMA 对饮食行为的调查。营养主题包括人群营养健康调查、饮酒、节食和外出就餐行为。所有研究均涉及内容分析，具有监测和参与的证据。Twitter 是主要的社交媒体平台，数据集达到数千万。SMA 工具用于数据发现、收集和准备，但在数据分析中使用较少。大约三分之一的研究涉及具有健康代表性的跨学科合作，只有两项研究涉及营养学科。不到四分之一的研究获得了正式的人类伦理批准。
SMA 在营养研究中对饮食行为的调查正在兴起，但如果考虑到技术能力和道德完整性，那么在广泛的人口普查水平上以及作为范围界定工具或补充、三角测量工具，未来前景看好。
