Monitoring the opioid epidemic via social media discussions

Abstract

The opioid epidemic persists in the U.S., with over 80,000 deaths annually since 2021, primarily driven by synthetic opioids. Responding to this evolving epidemic requires reliable and timely information. One source of data is social media platforms. We assessed the utility of Reddit data for surveillance, covering heroin, prescription, and synthetic drugs. We built a natural language processing pipeline to identify opioid-related content and created a cohort of 1,689,039 Reddit users, each assigned to a state based on their previous Reddit activity. We measured their opioid-related posts over time and compared rates against CDC overdose and NFLIS report rates. To simulate the real-world prediction of synthetic opioid overdose rates, we added near real-time Reddit data to a model relying on CDC mortality data with a typical 6-month reporting lag. Reddit data significantly improved the prediction accuracy of overdose rates. This work suggests that social media can help monitor drug epidemics.