Acceptance towards social network information system for earlier detection of Influenza outbreak

INTRODUCTION: Influenza outbreak causes high economic burden to Malaysia and other countries in South East Asia. Scientists have found a relatively new way to detect influenza outbreaks early thus reducing the burden of disease by early intervention. This new technology is a social network information system which uses Facebook or Twitter data to detect potential influenza cases. Such system is good to be developed by the Malaysian government as it can detect influenza outbreaks three weeks earlier than the normal pathway. However, to implement this we require good evidence that the development will be accepted by potential users.

OBJECTIVE: This study was looking at the acceptance towards using social network information system among public health workers.

MATERIALS AND METHOD: This study was done on 205 Malaysian One Health University Network (MyOHUN) members through email and physical survey.

RESULTS: Results show that 62.4% public health workers accepted the use technology. The acceptance was shown to be associated with performance expectancy (p<0.05). However, unlike the very famous Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, the acceptance of social network information system was not associated with effort expectancy, social factors, facilitating conditions and socio-demographic factors. Therefore, it is suggested that social network information system be developed by the authorities in Malaysia, and be developed in a way that the system could strongly increase performance in detection of outbreak earlier than the current normal pathways. As such the system to be accepted and used, it must be sensitive, specific and be able to detect influenza outbreak early CONCLUSION: The development of social network information system is feasible as it is highly accepted and it's potential to improve early detection of influenza outbreak.