Understanding public interest and needs in health policies through the application of social network analysis on a governmental Facebook fan page

BACKGROUND: This study analyzed the interactions between agencies, policies, and the interest of the public using a social network analysis. METHODS: Open data on the 2017 Facebook fan page of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MoHW) in Taiwan, including 18,193 messages, were analyzed by conducting a social network analysis, NodeXL (Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel), creating visualized explorations using size volumes to present the degree of strength between agencies and policies to further calculate the network centrality indicators of agencies and policies. RESULTS: Agencies of the “Social and Family Affairs Administration” and “Health Promotion Administration” contributed the most policy posts. The policy of “Physical and mental health promotion” entailed the most agencies to be involved. The “Department of Nursing and Health Care” received the largest public response, for which “Long-term care” received the most public interest. CONCLUSIONS: A social network analysis of fan page of Taiwan’s top level health government agency can reveal the government’s most emphasized core policies, the strength of correlations between agencies and policies, and provide an understanding of public interest toward the policies.