Usage of Social Media and Smartphone Application in Assessment of Physical and Psychological Well-Being of Individuals in Times of a Major Air Pollution Crisis

Zhang, Melvyn WB; Ho, Cyrus SH; Fang, Pan; Lu, Yanxia; Ho, Roger CM

Past research emphasized that the most critical aspect during a crisis was the selection of appropriate communication channels that had the highest degree of coverage and to be able to reach the population at risk. Studies on a cohort of Americans identified that the most trustworthy source of information during a crisis came from the doctors [3]. Studies conducted on people in Southeast Asia or Malaysia during the recent H1N1 influenza crisis identified that newspaper, television, and family members were the most trustworthy sources of information [4]. In comparison, similar studies done in the European population, like the Dutch, identified that the most trustworthy source of information came from the mass media during an outbreak of respiratory infectious disease [5,6]. During the 2011 Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) outbreak in Germany, the usage of a Web-based medium as a modality of communication of critical information was reported [7]. The study identified the Internet to be the most popular medium for dissemination of EHEC-related information, with news and newspaper websites as the most often consulted Web-based sources. Participants were noted to be skeptical of information posted on social networking sites and media like Facebook and Twitter [7], but this finding was preliminary due to small sample size (n=18 students).