Abstract
Over a half million children are living with cancer in the United States. Social media platforms offer unique opportunities for cancer communication by public health organizations as well as health care providers, scientists, patients, and caregivers. Given the dearth of research on childhood cancer communication, the present study aimed to examine the nature of tweets on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that used the hashtag #childhoodcancer, the types of these tweets that attracted the most retweets, the types of users tweeting about childhood cancer (e.g., individuals, health care professionals), and the nature of tweets made by the different types of users. We performed a content analysis of tweets we captured on X via NCapture in October and December 2022. Of the 3217 tweets captured, we randomly sampled 1000 eligible tweets and manually double-coded them. Interrater agreement was 83% (κ = 0.75). Results revealed six themes in the tweets, including fundraising (21.2%), advocacy (20.2%), motivational (17.5%), educational (15.3%), science (12.8%), and shout-outs (12.1%). Motivational, advocacy, and science tweets attracted more retweets than fundraising tweets and shout-outs (p < 0.001). Individuals (i.e., patients, caregivers, and advocates tweeting on their own behalf) and nonprofit organizations made a majority of the tweets at 41.5% and 38.6%, respectively, followed by health care professionals (8.7%), academic and/or medical centers (4.2%), and for-profit companies (3.5%). Childhood cancer communication on X is dominated by individuals doing advocacy and fundraising. X may provide important opportunities for public health messaging and science communication about childhood cancer.