Topics Discussed on Twitter at the Beginning of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic in United States

Health epidemics typically generate bursts of attention on social media. Considering a recent outbreak, we conducted evidence-based research which examines the information that was shared on Twitter on the 30th of September of 2014, when the first infection of Ebola outside of West Africa was diagnosed. The aim of this study was to retrieve data from Twitter from the 30th of September 2014 and examine the topics discussed relating to this specific outbreak. With regards to methods, we retrieved data via the Firehose API, sampled tweets, performed two phases of content analysis, and generated an inter-coder reliability statistic. We found that the most frequent tweets were based on Ebola news, updates, or information, and personal opinions and interest related to Ebola. When investigating tweets that were not resource-related or spam-based we found that some users were expressing humour and sarcasm towards the Ebola outbreak.