  Among American women, the rate of breast cancer is only second to lung
cancer. An estimated 12.4% women will develop breast cancer over the course of
their lifetime. The widespread use of social media across the socio-economic
spectrum offers unparalleled ways to facilitate information sharing, in
particular as it pertains to health. Social media is also used by many
healthcare stakeholders, ranging from government agencies to healthcare
industry, to disseminate health information and to engage patients. The purpose
of this study is to investigate people's perceptions and attitudes relate to
breast cancer, especially those that are related to physical activities, on
Twitter. To achieve this, we first identified and collected tweets related to
breast cancer; and then used topic modeling and sentiment analysis techniques
to understanding discussion themes and quantify Twitter users' perceptions and
emotions w.r.t breast cancer to answer 5 research questions.
