Which social media platforms facilitate monitoring the opioid crisis?

Carpenter KA, Nguyen AT, Smith DA, Samori IA, Humphreys K, Lembke A, Kiang MV, Eichstaedt JC, Altman RB. Which social media platforms facilitate monitoring the opioid crisis? PLOS digital health. 2025 Apr 1; 4(4):e0000842, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pdig.0000842.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• RCS 04-141 – Evaluating Treatment & Self-help Methods of Improving Functioning & Quality of Life Outcomes of Patients with Substance Abuse Disorders

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

Social media can provide real-time insight into trends in substance use, addiction, and recovery. Prior studies have used platforms such as Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), but evolving policies around data access have threatened these platforms'' usability in research. We evaluate the potential of a broad set of platforms to detect emerging trends in the opioid use disorder and overdose epidemic. From these, we identified 11 high-potential platforms, for which we documented policies regulating drug-related discussion, data accessibility, geolocatability, and prior use in opioid-related studies. We quantified their volume of opioid discussion, including in informal language by including slang generated using a large language model. Beyond the most commonly used Reddit and X/Twitter, the platforms with high potential for use in opioid-related surveillance are TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. Leveraging a variety of social platforms, instead of merely one, yields broader subpopulation representation and safeguards against reduced data access in any single platform.