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Journal Article

Citation

Mackey TK, Kalyanam J, Katsuki T, Lanckriet G. Am. J. Public Health 2017; 107(12): 1910-1915.

Affiliation

Tim K. Mackey is with the Department of Anesthesiology and Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, and the Global Health Policy Institute, San Diego. Janani Kalyanam is with the Global Health Policy Institute and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego. Takeo Katsuki is with the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, University of California, San Diego. Gert Lanckriet is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2017.303994

PMID

29048960

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To deploy a methodology accurately identifying tweets marketing the illegal online sale of controlled substances.

METHODS: We first collected tweets from the Twitter public application program interface stream filtered for prescription opioid keywords. We then used unsupervised machine learning (specifically, topic modeling) to identify topics associated with illegal online marketing and sales. Finally, we conducted Web forensic analyses to characterize different types of online vendors. We analyzed 619 937 tweets containing the keywords codeine, Percocet, fentanyl, Vicodin, Oxycontin, oxycodone, and hydrocodone over a 5-month period from June to November 2015.

RESULTS: A total of 1778 tweets (< 1%) were identified as marketing the sale of controlled substances online; 90% had imbedded hyperlinks, but only 46 were "live" at the time of the evaluation. Seven distinct URLs linked to Web sites marketing or illegally selling controlled substances online.

CONCLUSIONS: Our methodology can identify illegal online sale of prescription opioids from large volumes of tweets. Our results indicate that controlled substances are trafficked online via different strategies and vendors. Public Health Implications. Our methodology can be used to identify illegal online sellers in criminal violation of the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 19, 2017: e1-e6. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.303994).


Language: en

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