Wash your hands: CDC, WHO and NHS Twitter Communication during COVID-19
Katherine Ireland
University of Georgia
"Wash your hands, wear a mask, for more information on #covid-19" are a few examples of tweets by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and National Health Service (NHS) official accounts This work tracks public health messaging trends in a large database of Tweets by each governmental agency throughout 2020. Understandings of disease, health technology, and health-related decisions are informed through and by language patterns, and the central tenet of public health communication is to present health information in a clear and persuasive manner for "individuals and society" (Regidor et al. 2007). Using corpus-based methods including n-gram, keyword, and collocational analysis, key trends in CDC, WHO, and NHS Twitter communication are identified. Each organization includes developmental trends across the pandemic, but core differences are present between all three. Further applications and areas of work are also discussed including recommendations for CDC, WHO, and NHS continued communication via Twitter.