Detecting Illicit Opioid Content On Twitter

Introduction and Aims This article examines the feasibility of leveraging Twitter to detect posts authored by people who use opioids (PWUO) or content related to opioid use disorder (OUD), and manually develop a multidimensional taxonomy of relevant tweets.Design and Methods Twitter messages were collected between June and October 2017 (n = 23 827) and evaluated using an inductive coding approach. Content was then manually classified into two axes (n = 17 420): (i) user experience regarding accessing, using, or recovery from illicit opioids; and (ii) content categories (e.g. policies, medical information, jokes/sarcasm).Results The most prevalent categories consisted of jokes or sarcastic comments pertaining to OUD, PWUOs or hypothetically using illicit opioids (63%), informational content about treatments for OUD, overdose prevention or accessing self-help groups (20%), and commentary about government opioid policy or news related to opioids (17%). Posts by PWUOs centered on identifying illicit sources for procuring opioids (i.e. online, drug dealers; 49%), symptoms and/or strategies to quell opioid withdrawal symptoms (21%), and combining illicit opioid use with other substances, such as cocaine or benzodiazepines (17%). State and public health experts infrequently posted content pertaining to OUD (1%).Discussion and Conclusions Twitter offers a feasible approach to identify PWUO. Further research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of Twitter to disseminate evidence-based content and facilitate linkage to treatment and harm reduction services.