Contents, Followers, and Retweets of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Advanced Molecular Detection (@CDC_AMD) Twitter Profile: Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: The Office of Advanced Molecular Detection (OAMD), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), manages a Twitter profile (@CDC_AMD). To our knowledge, no prior study has analyzed a CDC Twitter handle's entire contents and all followers. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to describe the contents and followers of the Twitter profile @CDC_AMD and to assess if attaching photos or videos to tweets posted by @CDC_AMD would increase retweet frequency. METHODS: Data of @CDC_AMD were retrieved on November 21, 2016. All followers (N=809) were manually categorized. All tweets (N=768) were manually coded for contents and whether photos or videos were attached. Retweet count for each tweet was recorded. Negative binomial regression models were applied to both the original and the retweet corpora. RESULTS: Among the 809 followers, 26.0% (210/809) were individual health professionals, 11.6% (94/809) nongovernmental organizations, 3.3% (27/809) government agencies' accounts, 3.3% (27/809) accounts of media organizations and journalists, and 0.9% (7/809) academic journals, with 54.9% (444/809) categorized as miscellaneous. A total of 46.9% (360/768) of @CDC_AMD's tweets referred to the Office's website and their current research; 17.6% (135/768) referred to their scientists' publications. Moreover, 80% (69/86) of tweets retweeted by @CDC_AMD fell into the miscellaneous category. In addition, 43.4% (333/768) of the tweets contained photos or videos, whereas the remaining 56.6% (435/768) did not. Attaching photos or videos to original @CDC_AMD tweets increases the number of retweets by 37% (probability ratio=1.37, 95% CI 1.13-1.67, P=.002). Content topics did not explain or modify this association. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms CDC health communicators' experience that original tweets created by @CDC_AMD Twitter profile sharing images or videos (or their links) received more retweets. The current policy of attaching images to tweets should be encouraged.

Educating medical staff about responding to a radiological or nuclear emergency.

A growing body of audience research reveals medical personnel in hospitals are unprepared for a large-scale radiological emergency such as a terrorist event involving radioactive or nuclear materials. Also, medical personnel in hospitals lack a basic understanding of radiation principles, as well as diagnostic and treatment guidelines for radiation exposure. Clinicians have indicated that they lack sufficient training on radiological emergency preparedness; they are potentially unwilling to treat patients if those patients are perceived to be radiologically contaminated; and they have major concerns about public panic and overloading of clinical systems. In response to these findings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a tool kit for use by hospital medical personnel who may be called on to respond to unintentional or intentional mass-casualty radiological and nuclear events. This tool kit includes clinician fact sheets, a clinician pocket guide, a digital video disc (DVD) of just-in-time basic skills training, a CD-ROM training on mass-casualty management, and a satellite broadcast dealing with medical management of radiological events. CDC training information emphasizes the key role that medical health physicists can play in the education and support of emergency department activities following a radiological or nuclear mass-casualty event.

The roles of medical health physicists in a medical radiation emergency.

Medical health physicists working in a clinical setting will have a number of key roles in the event of a nuclear or radiological emergency, such as a terrorist attack involving a radiological dispersal device or an improvised nuclear device. Their first responsibility, of course, is to assist hospital administrators and facility managers in developing radiological emergency response plans for their facilities and train staff prior to an emergency. During a hospital's response to a nuclear or radiological emergency, medical health physicists may be asked to (1) evaluate the level of radiological contamination in or on incoming victims; (2) help the medical staff evaluate and understand the significance to patient and staff of the levels of radioactivity with which they are dealing; (3) orient responding medical staff with principles of dealing with radioactive contaminants; (4) provide guidance to staff on decontamination of patients, facilities, and the vehicles in which patients were transported; and (5) assist local public health authorities in monitoring people who are not injured but who have been or are concerned that they may have been exposed to radioactive materials or radiation as a result of the incident. Medical health physicists may also be called upon to communicate with staff, patients, and the media on radiological issues related to the event. Materials are available from a number of sources to assist in these efforts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is developing guidance in the areas of radiological population monitoring, handling contaminated fatalities, and using hospital equipment for emergency monitoring. CDC is also developing training and information materials that may be useful to medical health physicists who are called upon to assist in developing facility response plans or respond to a nuclear or radiological incident. Comments on these materials are encouraged.