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Winter Storms and Unplanned School Closure Announcements on Twitter: Comparison Between the States of Massachusetts and Georgia, 2017–2018

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2022

Haley I. Evans ,
Maya T. Handberry ,
Kamalich Muniz-Rodriguez ,
Jessica S. Schwind Open the ORCID record for Jessica S. Schwind [Opens in a new window] ,
Hai Liang ,
Bishwa B. Adhikari ,
Martin I. Meltzer  and
Isaac Chun-Hai Fung Open the ORCID record for Isaac Chun-Hai Fung [Opens in a new window]
Haley I. Evans
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
Maya T. Handberry
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
Kamalich Muniz-Rodriguez
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
Jessica S. Schwind
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
Hai Liang
Affiliation:
School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
Bishwa B. Adhikari
Affiliation:
Health Economics and Modeling Unit, Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
Martin I. Meltzer
Affiliation:
Health Economics and Modeling Unit, Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
Isaac Chun-Hai Fung*
Affiliation:
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences, Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA Health Economics and Modeling Unit, Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA
*
Corresponding author: Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, Email: cfung@georgiasouthern.edu.
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Abstract

Objective:

This project aimed to quantify and compare Massachusetts and Georgia public school districts’ 2017–2018 winter-storm-related Twitter unplanned school closure announcements (USCA).

Methods:

Public school district Twitter handles and National Center for Education Statistics data were obtained for Georgia and Massachusetts. Tweets were retrieved using Twitter application programming interface. Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were conducted to compare the rates of winter-storm-related USCA.

Results:

Massachusetts had more winter storms than Georgia during the 2017–2018 winter season, but Massachusetts school districts posted winter-storm-related USCA at a 60% lower rate per affected day (adjusted rate ratio, aRR = 0.40, 95% confidence intervals, CI: 0.30, 0.52) than Georgia school districts after controlling for the student enrollments and Twitter followers count per Twitter account. A 10-fold increase in followers count was correlated with a 118% increase in USCA rate per affected day (aRR = 2.18; 95% CI: 1.74, 2.75). Georgia school districts had a higher average USCA tweet rate per winter-storm-affected day than Massachusetts school districts. A higher number of Twitter followers was associated with a higher number of USCA tweets per winter-storm-affected day.

Conclusion:

Twitter accounts of school districts in Massachusetts had a lower tweet rate for USCA per winter-storm-affected days than those in Georgia.

Keywords

emergency preparednessevent monitoringschoolsocial mediawinter storm

Information

Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 17 , 2023 , e132
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc

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