Analyzing Mentions of Death in COVID-19 Tweets

Authors

  • Divya Mani Adhikari Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing (I2SC), Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
  • Muhammad Imran Qatar Computing Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar
  • Umair W. Qazi Qatar Computing Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar
  • Ingmar Weber Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing (I2SC), Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v18i1.31449

Abstract

Many researchers have analyzed the potential of using tweets for epidemiology in general and for nowcasting COVID-19 trends in specific. Here, we focus on a subset of tweets that mention a personal, COVID-related death. We show that focusing on this set improves the correlation with official death statistics in six countries, while also picking up on mortality trends specific to different age groups and socio-economic groups. Furthermore, qualitative analysis reveals how politicized many of the mentioned deaths are. To help others reproduce and build on our work, we release a dataset of annotated tweets for academic research.
ICWSM-2024 Proceedings Cover

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Published

2024-05-28

How to Cite

Adhikari, D. M., Imran, M., Qazi, U. W., & Weber, I. (2024). Analyzing Mentions of Death in COVID-19 Tweets. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 18(1), 2077-2083. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v18i1.31449

Issue

Vol. 18 (2024): Proceedings of the Eighteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media

Section

Poster Papers