scholarly journals The Management of Social Media in Major Public Health Emergencies

2021 ◽  
Vol 257 ◽  
pp. 02044
Author(s):  
Xin Li

In this study, the concept, basic theory and application of the management of social media in major public health emergencies were expounded with the management of social media in the novel coronavirus pneumonia as the breakthrough point. With the related reports or information of the novel coronavirus pneumonia as the analysis sample, the role of social media in the pandemic was discussed from multiple aspects and perspectives by using the method of content analysis. On this basis, the management strategies of social media in major public health emergencies were further proposed.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peishan Ning ◽  
Peixia Cheng ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Ming Zheng ◽  
David C Schwebel ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Given the permeation of social media throughout society, rumors spread faster than ever before, which significantly complicates government responses to public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE We aimed to examine the characteristics and propagation of rumors during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and evaluated the effectiveness of health authorities’ release of correction announcements. METHODS We retrieved rumors widely circulating on social media in China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed the effectiveness of official government clarifications and popular science articles refuting those rumors. RESULTS We show that the number of rumors related to the COVID-19 pandemic fluctuated widely in China between December 1, 2019 and April 15, 2020. Rumors mainly occurred in 3 provinces: Hubei, Zhejiang, and Guangxi. Personal social media accounts constituted the major source of media reports of the 4 most widely distributed rumors (the novel coronavirus can be prevented with “Shuanghuanglian”: 7648/10,664, 71.7%; the novel coronavirus is the SARS coronavirus: 14,696/15,902, 92.4%; medical supplies intended for assisting Hubei were detained by the local government: 3911/3943, 99.2%; asymptomatically infected persons were regarded as diagnosed COVID-19 patients with symptoms in official counts: 322/323, 99.7%). The number of rumors circulating was positively associated with the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic (ρ=0.88, 95% CI 0.81-0.93). The release of correction articles was associated with a substantial decrease in the proportion of rumor reports compared to accurate reports. The proportions of negative sentiments appearing among comments by citizens in response to media articles disseminating rumors and disseminating correct information differ insignificantly (both correct reports: χ<sub>1</sub><sup>2</sup>=0.315, <i>P</i>=.58; both rumors: χ<sub>1</sub><sup>2</sup>=0.025, <i>P</i>=.88; first rumor and last correct report: χ<sub>1</sub><sup>2</sup>=1.287, <i>P</i>=.26; first correct report and last rumor: χ<sub>1</sub><sup>2</sup>=0.033, <i>P</i>=.86). CONCLUSIONS Our results highlight the importance and urgency of monitoring and correcting false or misleading reports on websites and personal social media accounts. The circulation of rumors can influence public health, and government bodies should establish guidelines to monitor and mitigate the negative impact of such rumors.


Author(s):  
Guangwen Li ◽  
Bei Chang ◽  
Hui Li ◽  
Rui Wang ◽  
Gang Li

Abstract The past 20 years have seen major public health emergencies and natural disasters, including the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak caused by the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in 2003; the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008; and the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) of 2019, which caused mass casualties, infections, and panic. These also resulted in complex demands for medical resources and information, and a shortage of human resources for emergency responses. To address the shortage of human resources required for these emergency responses, Chinese dental professionals made useful contributions. From this work, deficiencies in emergency response training and opportunities for the expansion of rescue capabilities were identified, and relevant recommendations made.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0254127
Author(s):  
Sara Kazemian ◽  
Sam Fuller ◽  
Carlos Algara

Pundits and academics across disciplines note that the human toll brought forth by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States (U.S.) is fundamentally unequal for communities of color. Standing literature on public health posits that one of the chief predictors of racial disparity in health outcomes is a lack of institutional trust among minority communities. Furthermore, in our own county-level analysis from the U.S., we find that counties with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic residents have had vastly higher cumulative deaths from COVID-19. In light of this standing literature and our own analysis, it is critical to better understand how to mitigate or prevent these unequal outcomes for any future pandemic or public health emergency. Therefore, we assess the claim that raising institutional trust, primarily scientific trust, is key to mitigating these racial inequities. Leveraging a new, pre-pandemic measure of scientific trust, we find that trust in science, unlike trust in politicians or the media, significantly raises support for COVID-19 social distancing policies across racial lines. Our findings suggest that increasing scientific trust is essential to garnering support for public health policies that lessen the severity of the current, and potentially a future, pandemic.


2022 ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Petek Tosun

This chapter explores the social media marketing communication of brands in the first days of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak within the theoretical framework provided by signaling theory. The social media content of six Turkish brands was examined by content analysis. The findings have shown that brands shared posts in four themes: brand promotion, brand's COVID-19 messages, product promotion, and special day posts. Brands integrated the COVID-19 agenda in their social media communication in two ways. First, they designed and shared posts that focused solely on the pandemic. These COVID-19-related posts constituted a separate category that did not include any direct relevance to the brands' promotion activities. Second, they added COVID-19-related points in their social media posts. This study provides valuable findings for marketing practitioners and academicians regarding social media communication in a global health crisis.


Author(s):  
Simin Mehdipour ◽  
Nazanin Jannati ◽  
Mozhgan Negarestani ◽  
Saber Amirzadeh ◽  
Sareh Keshvardoost ◽  
...  

Background: Mobile-based social media play an important role in the dissemination of information during public health emergencies. Objectives: This study aimed to analyze the contents and trends of public messages posted on Telegram during Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: A content analysis of the 1781 messages, posted in a public Telegram channel with more than one million subscribers performed over 9-weeks. The messages were categorized into seven categories. Results: In total, 39% (n=703) of all messages were related to COVID-19. With the official confirmation of the case of COVID-19 in Iran, the number of COVID-related massages started to rise. Overall, the most frequent messages were of joke and humor (n=292, 41.5%), followed by educational messages (n=140, 19.9%). Conclusion: Our study showed that the most popular messages during first weeks of COVID pandemic were satirical, indicating that people may not had taken the risks of this pandemic seriously. It is crucial for health organizations to develop strategies for dissemination of reliable health information through social media.


Author(s):  
Nikita Jatai ◽  
Tanu Sharma ◽  
Karan Veer

All over the world, there is a new target of public health emergency looming the world along with an appearance and distribution of the novel coronavirus disease (2019-nCoV) also known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This Virus initially generated in bats and then after transferred to a human being over unknown animal playing the role of mediator in Wuhan, China in December 2019. This virus is passed by breathing or in contact with an infected person’s droplets. The Incubation period is between 2 to 14 days for COVID-19, that is the time between exposure of the virus (person becoming infected) and symptom on that person, is on an average of 5-6 days, however it can goes up to 14 days. Throughout this period, which can be also known as “pre-symptomatic” period, some of the infected patients or persons can be contagious. That is why, transferal from a pre-symptomatic case can happen before the symptoms onset. Where there is few number of case studies and reports, pre-symptomatic transferal has been documented via contact with someone who is diagnosed with virus and increase investigation of that particular clusters of total confirmed cases. The main problem is that the symptoms are just like the regular flu that are cough, fever, sore throat, fatigue and breathlessness. This virus is moderate or mild in most of the people, but in elder ones, it may proceed to pneumonia, multi-organ dysfunction and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Coronavirus has significant consequences on the Health system, mainly on cardiovascular diseases and on the environment.


Vaccines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 358
Author(s):  
Pasquale Domenico Pedote ◽  
Stefano Termite ◽  
Andrea Gigliobianco ◽  
Pier Luigi Lopalco ◽  
Francesco Paolo Bianchi

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Several measures aimed at containing the spread of this virus have been recommended by international and nation public health institutions, but whether the influenza vaccine, while not protective against COVID-19, nonetheless reduces disease severity is unclear. This study evaluated the potential role of influenza vaccine in reducing the rate of hospitalization and death in COVID-19 patients. COVID-19 cases recorded in the province of Brindisi (Apulia, Southern Italy) during the first pandemic wave (February–May 2020) and occurring in patients vaccinated with the influenza vaccine during the 2019–2020 influenza season were considered. From February 2020 to May 2020, 3872 inhabitants of the province of Brindisi underwent SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing and 664 (8.7%) tested positive. A multivariate analysis showed that among COVID-19 patients neither hospitalization nor death was significantly associated with influenza vaccination (p > 0.05), whereas within this group male sex, older age, and chronic diseases were identified as risk factors for morbidity and mortality. Our study did not show an association between the influenza vaccine and complications of COVID-19. Nonetheless, influenza vaccination must be promoted as a central public health measure, because by reducing the burden on hospitals it can greatly benefit the management of COVID-19 patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 977-982
Author(s):  
Mohamed J. Saadh ◽  
Bashar Haj Rashid M ◽  
Roa’a Matar ◽  
Sajeda Riyad Aldibs ◽  
Hala Sbaih ◽  
...  

SARS-COV2 virus causes Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and represents the causative agent of a potentially fatal disease that is of great global public health concern. The novel coronavirus (2019) was discovered in 2019 in Wuhan, the market of the wet animal, China with viral pneumonia cases and is life-threatening. Today, WHO announces COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. COVID-19 is likely to be zoonotic. It is transmitted from bats as intermediary animals to human. Also, the virus is transmitted from human to human who is in close contact with others. The computerized tomographic chest scan is usually abnormal even in those with no symptoms or mild disease. Treatment is nearly supportive; the role of antiviral agents is yet to be established. The SARS-COV2 virus spreads faster than its two ancestors, the SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), but has lower fatality. In this article, we aimed to summarize the transmission, symptoms, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine to control the spread of this fatal disease.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Wykowska ◽  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Stefan Kopp

This booklet is a collection of the position statements accepted for the HRI’20 conference workshop “Social Cognition for HRI: Exploring the relationship between mindreading and social attunement in human-robot interaction” (Wykowska, Perez-Osorio &amp; Kopp, 2020). Unfortunately, due to the rapid unfolding of the novel coronavirus at the beginning of the present year, the conference and consequently our workshop, were canceled. On the light of these events, we decided to put together the positions statements accepted for the workshop. The contributions collected in these pages highlight the role of attribution of mental states to artificial agents in human-robot interaction, and precisely the quality and presence of social attunement mechanisms that are known to make human interaction smooth, efficient, and robust. These papers also accentuate the importance of the multidisciplinary approach to advance the understanding of the factors and the consequences of social interactions with artificial agents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Taylor A. Holroyd ◽  
Oladeji K. Oloko ◽  
Daniel A. Salmon ◽  
Saad B. Omer ◽  
Rupali J. Limaye

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