The University of Pennsylvania team hopes to continue their research on Twitter data. For example, they are currently working on a similar study focused on 15 leading causes of death within the United States, and the head researcher is looking into depression in individuals through Facebook statuses [39]. Yet research and experiments of this nature are not limited to the University of Pennsylvania or UCLA.
One organization that is expanding on this kind of work is Sherbit.io. The goal of Sherbit is to use information in Twitter to deliver a “sophisticated health analysis tool” to the individual [40]. However, Sherbit’s work is not limited to diseases, nor is it limited to Twitter. They want to offer a range of benefits from effective time management to a better night’s sleep, and they connect to services as varied as Reddit to Uber [41].
Clearly, any group could build upon this work, or even begin their own work given an interest in social media big data.