scholarly journals The Structure of Tweets about Vaccine Safety Between Health Organizations, Experts and the Public: Analyzing Risk Communication Conversations

Author(s):  
David Manheim ◽  
Anat Gesser-Edelsburg

Abstract This paper considers how health education organizations in the World Health Organization's Vaccine Safety Network (VSN) use Twitter to communicate about vaccines with the public, and whether they answer questions and engage in conversations. Almost no research in public health, to our knowledge, has explored conversational structure on social media among posts sent by different accounts. Starting with 1,017,176 tweets by relevant users, we constructed two corpuses of multi-tweet conversations. The first was 1,814 conversations that included VSN members directly, while the second was 2,283 conversations mentioning vaccines or vaccine denialism. The tweets and user metadata was then analyzed using an adaptation of Rhetorical Structure Theory. In the studied data, VSN members tweeted 12,677 times within conversations, compared to their 37,587 lone tweets. Their conversations were shorter than those in the comparison corpus (P < 0.0001), and they were involved in fewer multilogues (P < 0.0001). We also see that while there is diversity among organizations, most were tied to the pre-social-media broadcast model. In the future, they should try to converse more, rather than tweet more, and embrace best-practices in risk-communication.

Author(s):  
Martina Barchitta ◽  
Annalisa Quattrocchi ◽  
Andrea Maugeri ◽  
Maria Clara La Rosa ◽  
Claudia La Mastra ◽  
...  

The issue of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a focus of the World Health Organization, which proposes educational interventions targeting the public and healthcare professionals. Here, we present the first attempt at a regionwide multicomponent campaign in Sicily (Italy), called “Obiettivo Antibiotico”, which aims to raise the awareness of prudent use of antibiotics in the public and in healthcare professionals. The campaign was designed by an interdisciplinary academic team, and an interactive website was populated with different materials, including key messages, letters, slogans, posters, factsheets, leaflets, and videos. The campaign was launched in November 2018 and, as of 21 December 2018, the website had a total of 1159 unique visitors, of which 190 became champions by pledging to take simple actions to support the fight against AMR. Data from social media showed that the audience was between 18 and 54 years of age, with a high proportion of female participants (64%). Interestingly, the LinkedIn page received more than 1200 followers, and Facebook 685 followers. The number of actions taken (pledges) by the audience was 458, evenly divided between experts (53%) and the general public (47%). Additional efforts are needed to reach more people, thus future efforts should focus on further promotion within the Sicilian region to sustain the engagement with the campaign.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30
Author(s):  
Muhammad Habibi ◽  
Adri Priadana ◽  
Muhammad Rifqi Ma’arif

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in more than six million confirmed cases and more than 371,000 deaths globally on June 1, 2020. The incident sparked a flood of scientific research to help society deal with the virus, both inside and outside the medical domain. Research related to public health analysis and public conversations about the spread of COVID-19 on social media is one of the highlights of researchers in the world. People can analyze information from social media as supporting data about public health. Analyzing public conversations will help the relevant authorities understand public opinion and information gaps between them and the public, helping them develop appropriate emergency response strategies to address existing problems in the community during the pandemic and provide information on the population's emotions in different contexts. However, research related to the analysis of public health and public conversations was so far conducted only through supervised analysis of textual data. In this study, we aim to analyze specifically the sentiment and topic modeling of Indonesian public conversations about the COVID-19 on Twitter using the NLP technique. We applied some methods to analyze the sentiment to obtain the best classification method. In this study, the topic modeling was carried out unsupervised using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results of this study reveal that the most frequently discussed topic related to the COVID-19 pandemic is economic issues.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Chen Lyu ◽  
Eileen Le Han ◽  
Garving K Luli

BACKGROUND Vaccination is a cornerstone of the prevention of communicable infectious diseases; however, vaccines have traditionally met with public fear and hesitancy, and COVID-19 vaccines are no exception. Social media use has been demonstrated to play a role in the low acceptance of vaccines. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to identify the topics and sentiments in the public COVID-19 vaccine–related discussion on social media and discern the salient changes in topics and sentiments over time to better understand the public perceptions, concerns, and emotions that may influence the achievement of herd immunity goals. METHODS Tweets were downloaded from a large-scale COVID-19 Twitter chatter data set from March 11, 2020, the day the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, to January 31, 2021. We used R software to clean the tweets and retain tweets that contained the keywords <i>vaccination</i>, <i>vaccinations</i>, <i>vaccine</i>, <i>vaccines</i>, <i>immunization</i>, <i>vaccinate</i>, and <i>vaccinated</i>. The final data set included in the analysis consisted of 1,499,421 unique tweets from 583,499 different users. We used R to perform latent Dirichlet allocation for topic modeling as well as sentiment and emotion analysis using the National Research Council of Canada Emotion Lexicon. RESULTS Topic modeling of tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines yielded 16 topics, which were grouped into 5 overarching themes. Opinions about vaccination (227,840/1,499,421 tweets, 15.2%) was the most tweeted topic and remained a highly discussed topic during the majority of the period of our examination. Vaccine progress around the world became the most discussed topic around August 11, 2020, when Russia approved the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine. With the advancement of vaccine administration, the topic of instruction on getting vaccines gradually became more salient and became the most discussed topic after the first week of January 2021. Weekly mean sentiment scores showed that despite fluctuations, the sentiment was increasingly positive in general. Emotion analysis further showed that trust was the most predominant emotion, followed by anticipation, fear, sadness, etc. The trust emotion reached its peak on November 9, 2020, when Pfizer announced that its vaccine is 90% effective. CONCLUSIONS Public COVID-19 vaccine–related discussion on Twitter was largely driven by major events about COVID-19 vaccines and mirrored the active news topics in mainstream media. The discussion also demonstrated a global perspective. The increasingly positive sentiment around COVID-19 vaccines and the dominant emotion of trust shown in the social media discussion may imply higher acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines compared with previous vaccines.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Josephine Walwema

Upon declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) orchestrated a global risk-communication outreach. The WHO’s objective was to persuade the public to upend and alter their lives so as to contain the disease and minimize its spread and infection. The WHO found a simple and efficient medium to communicate glocally through the social media application WhatsApp, through which individuals could access information without gatekeeping by governments and local agencies.


Biologics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-40
Author(s):  
Iman Salahshoori ◽  
Noushin Mobaraki-Asl ◽  
Ahmad Seyfaee ◽  
Nasrin Mirzaei Nasirabad ◽  
Zahra Dehghan ◽  
...  

Coronaviruses belong to the “Coronaviridae family”, which causes various diseases, from the common cold to SARS and MERS. The coronavirus is naturally prevalent in mammals and birds. So far, six human-transmitted coronaviruses have been discovered. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Common symptoms include fever, dry cough, and fatigue, but in acute cases, the disease can lead to severe shortness of breath, hypoxia, and death. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the three main transmission routes, such as droplet and contact routes, airborne transmission and fecal and oral for COVID-19, have been identified. So far, no definitive curative treatment has been discovered for COVID-19, and the available treatments are only to reduce the complications of the disease. According to the World Health Organization, preventive measures at the public health level such as quarantine of the infected person, identification and monitoring of contacts, disinfection of the environment, and personal protective equipment can significantly prevent the outbreak COVID-19. Currently, based on the urgent needs of the community to control this pandemic, the BNT162b2 (Pfizer), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), CoronaVac (Sinovac), Sputnik V (Gamaleya Research Institute, Acellena Contract Drug Research, and Development), BBIBP-CorV (Sinofarm), and AZD1222 (The University of Oxford; AstraZeneca) vaccines have received emergency vaccination licenses from health organizations in vaccine-producing countries. Vasso Apostolopoulos, Majid Hassanzadeganroudsari


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (10) ◽  
pp. 2597-2614
Author(s):  
Maria Laura Ruiu ◽  
Massimo Ragnedda ◽  
Gabriele Ruiu

Purpose This paper investigates both similarities and differences between two global threats represented by climate change (CC) and Covid-19 (CV). This will help understand the reasons behind the recognition of the CV as a pandemic that requires global efforts, whereas efforts to tackle climate change still lack such urgency. This paper aims to answer to the following questions: What are the elements that make CV restrictions acceptable by both the public and policymakers? and What are the elements that make CC restrictions not acceptable? Design/methodology/approach This paper analyses the situation reports released by the World Health Organisation between the 11th of March (declaration of pandemic) and the 22nd of April, and their associated documents such as the Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (WHO), the Risk Communication and Community Engagement Action Plan (WHO) and its updated version (WHO) and the Handbook for public health capacity-building (WHO). The analysis ends one week after President Trump’s announcement to suspend US funding to WHO (Fedor and Manson, 2020) and his support to public demonstrations against restrictions. Findings The application of the second stage of the “Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication” model identifies five lessons that can be learned from this comparison. These relate to the necessity to simultaneously warn (about the severity of a threat) and reassure (by suggesting specific courses of action) the public; the need for multilevel collaboration that integrates collective and individual actions; the capacity to present cohesive messages to the public; the risk of politicisation and commodification of the issue that might undermine global efforts to tackle the threat; and the capacity to trigger individual responses through the promotion of self-efficacy. Originality/value This paper identifies both similarities and differences between CC and CV managements to understand why the two threats are perceived and tackled in different ways. The analysis of official documents released by both the World Health Organisation and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate CV outbreak as a crisis, whereas climate change is still anchored to the status of a future-oriented risk.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laila Fariha Zein ◽  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

In today’s world, it is easier and easier to stay connected with people who are halfway across the world. Social media and a globalizing economy have created new methods of business, trade and socialization resulting in vast amounts of communication and effecting global commerce. Like her or hate her, Kimberly Noel Kardashian West as known as Kim Kardashian has capitalized on social media platforms and the globalizing economy. Kim is known for two things: famous for doing nothing and infamous for a sex tape. But Kim has not let those things define her. With over 105 million Instagram followers and 57 million Twitter followers, Kim has become a major global influence. Kim has travelled around the world, utilizing the success she has had on social media to teach make-up master classes with professional make-up artist, Mario Dedivanovic. She owns or has licensed several different businesses including: an emoji app, a personal app, a gaming app, a cosmetics line, and a fragrance line. Not to be forgotten, the Kardashian family show, ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ has been on the air for ten years with Kim at the forefront. Kim also has three books: ‘Kardashian Konfidential’, ‘Dollhouse’, and ‘Selfish’. With her rising social media following, Kim has used the platforms to show her support for politicians and causes, particularly, recognition of the Armenian genocide. Kim also recently spoke at the Forbes’ women’s summit. Following the summit, Kim tweeted out her support for a recent movement on Twitter, #freeCyntoiaBrown which advocated for a young woman who claimed to have shot and killed the man who held her captive as a teenage sex slave in self-defense. Kim had her own personal lawyers help out Cyntoia on her case. Kim has also moved beyond advocating for issues within the confines of the United States. As mentioned earlier, she is known for advocating for recognition of the Armenian genocide. In the last two years, her show has made it a point to address the Armenian situation as it was then and as it is now. Kim has been recognized as a global influencer by others across the wordl. We believe Kim has become the same as political leaders when it comes to influencing the public. Kim’s story reveals that the new reality creates a perfect opportunity for mass disturbances or for initiating mass support or mass disapproval. Although Kim is typically viewed for her significance to pop culture, Kim’s business and social media following have placed her deep into the mix of international commerce. As her businesses continue to grow and thrive, we may see more of her influence on international issues and an increase in the commerce from which her businesses benefit.


Author(s):  
Max Z. Li ◽  
Megan S. Ryerson

Community outreach and engagement efforts are critical to an airport’s role as an ever-evolving transportation infrastructure and regional economic driver. As online social media platforms continue to grow in both popularity and influence, a new engagement channel between airports and the public is emerging. However, the motivations behind and effectiveness of these social media channels remain unclear. In this work, we address this knowledge gap by better understanding the advantages, impact, and best practices of this newly emerging engagement channel available to airports. Focusing specifically on airport YouTube channels, we first document quantitative viewership metrics, and examine common content characteristics within airport YouTube videos. We then conduct interviews and site visits with relevant airport stakeholders to identify the motivations and workflow behind these videos. Finally, we facilitate sample focus groups designed to survey public perceptions of the effectiveness and value of these videos. From our four project phases, to maximize content effectiveness and community engagement potential, we synthesize the following framework of action items, recommendations, and best practices: (C) Consistency and community; (O) Organizational structure; (M) Momentum; (B) Branding and buy-in; (A) Activity; (T) Two-way engagement; (E) Enthusiasm; and (D) Depth, or as a convenient initialism, our COMBATED framework.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002073142110249
Author(s):  
Huriye Toker

As seen clearly from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, health is an important foreign policy and diplomatic issue connected with security, economic well-being, and international development. According to risk communication researchers, effective, transparent, and timely information sharing is the most important tool after vaccines for responding to pandemics. This study aims to start a scholarly discussion on the risk communication efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) during the COVID-19 outbreak. We analyzed WHO’s communication efforts during the first 3 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the leading international health organization, WHO was responsible for providing rapid, up-to-date, and credible information for the public and the media. The selected research items were 42 news releases and statements provided by WHO between December 31, 2019, and March 30, 2020. These were subjected to qualitative and quantitative content analyses using the NVivo 12 qualitative analysis software program for coding. The data were coded under 6 variables (date of publication, topics, frequency, wording of the COVID-19 outbreak, sourcing, and themes of the releases). While 54.7% of WHO's communications were devoted to the COVID-19 outbreak, more than half were not issued until March. That is, instead of early risk communication and clear warnings about the outbreak, WHO acted overcautiously, preferring messages related to solidarity and cooperation during the most devastating pandemic of the 21st century.


Author(s):  
Susan Igras ◽  
Marina Plesons ◽  
Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli

Abstract Over the past 25 years, there has been significant progress in increasing the recognition of, resources for, and action on adolescent health, and adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) in particular. As with numerous other health areas, however, many of the projects that aim to improve ASRH are implemented without well-thought-out plans for evaluation. As a result, the lessons that projects learn as they encounter and address policy and programmatic challenges are often not extracted and placed in the public arena. In such cases, post-project evaluation (PPE) offers the possibility to generate learnings about what works (and does not work), to complement prospective studies of new or follow-on projects. To fill the gap in the literature and guidance on PPE, the World Health Organization developed The project has ended, but we can still learn from it! Practical guidance for conducting post-project evaluations of adolescent sexual and reproductive health projects. This article provides an overview of the guidance by outlining key methodological and contextual challenges in conducting PPE, as well as illustrative solutions for responding to them.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document