Research opportunities at the intersection of social media and survey data

•Researchers now use social media data to explore health behaviors.•There are opportunities for studies that link social media data with survey data.•This paper introduces a paradigm for collecting user-centric data from Twitter.•It discusses novel contributions to health research using this approach.

This article reviews literature related to the use of social media, specifically Twitter, to study health behavior. It will discuss the potential for studies that link social media data with survey data. After detailing study design considerations and outlining guidelines for work in this area, it will propose opportunities for novel contributions to health research.