Analyzing Events’ Impacts on Mental Health Using Tweets

Abstract

Traumatic events like cyclones, bomb blasts, and earthquakes impact people's mental health, and relevant Information reflects in tweet texts. Researchers developed event detection models and mental health assessment systems separately. Little research was focused on analyzing various events’ impacts on mental health via social media. To evaluate the effect of events on mental health, we use the area under the curve (AUC) method to mine the tweets. The AUC method makes numerical estimation under normal conditions, before, during, and after an event. We collected 90,649 tweets during the three events (Sri Lanka Bomb blasts, Burevi Cyclone, and Tauktae Cyclone) in 2019, 2020, and 2021 and computed the events’ impacts on relevant people’s mental health using the AUC method. The new results matched with the event reports by other sources. The AUC method is useful for planning and executing disaster preparedness and emergency teams.