Social Media Monitoring to Inform Public Health Programming: Processes and recommendations from an example Zika-related study to detect rumors and misinformation in four Central and Latin American countries

The Health Communication Collaborative (HC3) conducted social media monitoring of publicly available social media posts in 2016-17. Monthly social media monitoring reports were published to identify rumors and misinformation about Zika in El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Guatemala with the intent to inform public health programming to address these issues directly. This report describes the process that was followed, challenges encountered, lessons learned, and how these shaped the activity and the findings. The report also includes recommendations for future social media monitoring activities.