Background:

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated existing racial/ethnic health disparities in the United States (U.S.). Monitoring nationwide Twitter conversations about COVID-19 and race/ethnicity could shed light on the impact of the pandemic on the racial/ethnic minorities and help address health disparities.

Objective:

This paper aims to examine the association between COVID-19 tweet volume and COVID-19 cases and deaths, stratified by race/ethnicity, in the early onset of the pandemic.

Methods:

This cross-sectional study used geo-tagged COVID-19 tweets from within the U.S. posted in April 2020 on Twitter to examine the association between tweet volume, COVID-19 surveillance data (total cases and deaths in April), and population size. The studied time frame was limited to April 2020 because April was the earliest month when COVID-19 surveillance data on racial/ethnic groups was collected. Racially/ethnically stratified tweets were extracted using racial/ethnic group-related keywords (Asian, Black, Latino, and White) from COVID-19 tweets. Racially/ethnically stratified tweets, COVID-19 cases, and deaths were mapped to reveal their spatial distribution patterns. The ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model was applied to each stratified dataset.

Results:

The racially/ethnically stratified tweet volume was associated with surveillance data. Specifically, the increase of one Asian tweet was correlated to 288 Asian cases (p<0.05) and 93.4 Asian deaths (p<0.05); the increase of one Black tweet was linked to 47.6 Black deaths (p<0.05); the increase of one Latino tweets was linked to 719 Latino deaths (p<0.05); and the increase of one White tweet was linked to 60.2 White deaths (p<0.05).

Conclusions:

Using racially/ethnically stratified Twitter data as a surveillance indicator could inform epidemiologic trends to help estimate future surges of COVID-19 cases and potential future outbreaks of a pandemic among racial/ethnic groups.