Engagement with COVID-19 Public Health Measures in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Social Media Analysis from June to November 2020 (Preprint)

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has continued to spread in the US and globally. Closely monitoring public engagement and perception of COVID-19 and preventive measures using social media data could provide important information for understanding the progress of current interventions and planning future programs. OBJECTIVE To measure the public’s behaviors and perceptions regarding COVID-19 and its daily life effects during the recent 5 months of the pandemic. METHODS Natural language processing (NLP) algorithms were used to identify COVID-19 related and unrelated topics in over 300 million online data sources from June 15 to November 15, 2020. Posts in the sample were geotagged, and sensitivity and specificity were both calculated to validate the classification of posts. The prevalence of discussion regarding these topics was measured over this time period and compared to daily case rates in the US. RESULTS The final sample size included 9,065,733 posts, 70% of which were sourced from the US. In October and November, discussion including mentions of COVID-19 and related health behaviors did not increase as it had from June to September, despite an increase in COVID-19 daily cases in the US beginning in October. Additionally, counter to reports from March and April, discussion was more focused on daily life topics (69%), compared with COVID-19 in general (37%) and COVID-19 public health measures (20%). CONCLUSIONS There was a decline in COVID-19-related social media discussion sourced mainly from the US, even as COVID-19 cases in the US have increased to the highest rate since the beginning of the pandemic. Targeted public health messaging may be needed to ensure engagement in public health prevention measures until a vaccine is widely available to the public.

Download Full-text

Engagement with COVID-19 Public Health Measures in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Social Media Analysis from June to November 2020

10.1101/2021.02.05.21250127 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Daisy Massey ◽

Chenxi Huang ◽

Yuan Lu ◽

Alina Cohen ◽

Yahel Oren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Language Processing ◽

Daily Life ◽

The United States ◽

Media Analysis ◽

Prevention Measures ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Health Measures ◽

The Us

AbstractBackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has continued to spread in the US and globally. Closely monitoring public engagement and perception of COVID-19 and preventive measures using social media data could provide important information for understanding the progress of current interventions and planning future programs.ObjectiveTo measure the public’s behaviors and perceptions regarding COVID-19 and its daily life effects during the recent 5 months of the pandemic.MethodsNatural language processing (NLP) algorithms were used to identify COVID-19 related and unrelated topics in over 300 million online data sources from June 15 to November 15, 2020. Posts in the sample were geotagged, and sensitivity and specificity were both calculated to validate the classification of posts. The prevalence of discussion regarding these topics was measured over this time period and compared to daily case rates in the US.ResultsThe final sample size included 9,065,733 posts, 70% of which were sourced from the US. In October and November, discussion including mentions of COVID-19 and related health behaviors did not increase as it had from June to September, despite an increase in COVID-19 daily cases in the US beginning in October. Additionally, counter to reports from March and April, discussion was more focused on daily life topics (69%), compared with COVID-19 in general (37%) and COVID-19 public health measures (20%).ConclusionsThere was a decline in COVID-19-related social media discussion sourced mainly from the US, even as COVID-19 cases in the US have increased to the highest rate since the beginning of the pandemic. Targeted public health messaging may be needed to ensure engagement in public health prevention measures until a vaccine is widely available to the public.

Download Full-text

Exploring the Role of Media Sources on COVID-19–Related Discrimination Experiences and Concerns Among Asian People in the United States: Cross-Sectional Survey Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.21684 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nan Yu ◽

Shuya Pan ◽

Chia-chen Yang ◽

Jiun-Yi Tsai

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

The United States ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Racial Biases ◽

Asian People

BACKGROUND Media coverage and scholarly research have reported that Asian people who reside in the United States have been the targets of racially motivated incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to examine the types of discrimination and worries experienced by Asians and Asian Americans living in the United States during the pandemic, as well as factors that were associated with everyday discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination that the Asian community may face. METHODS A cross-sectional online survey was conducted. A total of 235 people who identified themselves as Asian or Asian American and resided in the United States completed the questionnaire. RESULTS Our study suggested that up to a third of Asians surveyed had experienced some type of discrimination. Pooling the responses “very often,” “often,” and “sometimes,” the percentages for each experienced discrimination type ranged between 14%-34%. In total, 49%-58% of respondents expressed concerns about discrimination in the future. The most frequently experienced discrimination types, as indicated by responses “very often” and “often,” were “people act as if they think you are dangerous” (25/235, 11%) and “being treated with less courtesy or respect” (24/235, 10%). About 14% (32/235) of individuals reported very often, often, or sometimes being threatened or harassed. In addition, social media use was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing discrimination (β=.18, P=.01) and having concerns about future episodes of discrimination the community may face (β=.20, P=.005). Use of print media was also positively associated with experiencing discrimination (β=.31, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Our study provided important empirical evidence regarding the various types of discrimination Asians residing in the United States experienced or worried about during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationship between media sources and the perception of racial biases in this group was also identified. We noted the role of social media in reinforcing the perception of discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination among Asians during this outbreak. Our results indicate several practical implications for public health agencies. To reduce discrimination against Asians during the pandemic, official sources and public health professionals should be cognizant of the possible impacts of stigmatizing cues in media reports on activating racial biases. Furthermore, Asians or Asian Americans could also be informed that using social media to obtain COVID-19 information is associated with an increase in concerns about future discrimination, and thus they may consider approaching this media source with caution.

Download Full-text

Exploring the Role of Media Sources on COVID-19–Related Discrimination Experiences and Concerns Among Asian People in the United States: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

Journal of Medical Internet Research ◽

10.2196/21684 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (11) ◽

pp. e21684

Author(s):

Nan Yu ◽

Shuya Pan ◽

Chia-chen Yang ◽

Jiun-Yi Tsai

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

The United States ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Racial Biases ◽

Asian People

Background Media coverage and scholarly research have reported that Asian people who reside in the United States have been the targets of racially motivated incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This study aimed to examine the types of discrimination and worries experienced by Asians and Asian Americans living in the United States during the pandemic, as well as factors that were associated with everyday discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination that the Asian community may face. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was conducted. A total of 235 people who identified themselves as Asian or Asian American and resided in the United States completed the questionnaire. Results Our study suggested that up to a third of Asians surveyed had experienced some type of discrimination. Pooling the responses “very often,” “often,” and “sometimes,” the percentages for each experienced discrimination type ranged between 14%-34%. In total, 49%-58% of respondents expressed concerns about discrimination in the future. The most frequently experienced discrimination types, as indicated by responses “very often” and “often,” were “people act as if they think you are dangerous” (25/235, 11%) and “being treated with less courtesy or respect” (24/235, 10%). About 14% (32/235) of individuals reported very often, often, or sometimes being threatened or harassed. In addition, social media use was significantly associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing discrimination (β=.18, P=.01) and having concerns about future episodes of discrimination the community may face (β=.20, P=.005). Use of print media was also positively associated with experiencing discrimination (β=.31, P<.001). Conclusions Our study provided important empirical evidence regarding the various types of discrimination Asians residing in the United States experienced or worried about during the COVID-19 pandemic. The relationship between media sources and the perception of racial biases in this group was also identified. We noted the role of social media in reinforcing the perception of discrimination experience and concerns about future discrimination among Asians during this outbreak. Our results indicate several practical implications for public health agencies. To reduce discrimination against Asians during the pandemic, official sources and public health professionals should be cognizant of the possible impacts of stigmatizing cues in media reports on activating racial biases. Furthermore, Asians or Asian Americans could also be informed that using social media to obtain COVID-19 information is associated with an increase in concerns about future discrimination, and thus they may consider approaching this media source with caution.

Download Full-text

Measuring the Outreach Efforts of Public Health Authorities and the Public Response on Facebook During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Early 2020: Cross-Country Comparison (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.19334 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Aravind Sesagiri Raamkumar ◽

Soon Guan Tan ◽

Hwee Lin Wee

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Communication Strategies ◽

The United States ◽

Media Analysis ◽

Public Response ◽

The Public ◽

Health Authorities ◽

Public Health Authorities

BACKGROUND The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic presents one of the most challenging global crises at the dawn of a new decade. Public health authorities (PHAs) are increasingly adopting the use of social media such as Facebook to rapidly communicate and disseminate pandemic response measures to the public. Understanding of communication strategies across different PHAs and examining the public response on the social media landscapes can help improve practices for disseminating information to the public. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine COVID-19-related outreach efforts of PHAs in Singapore, the United States, and England, and the corresponding public response to these outreach efforts on Facebook. METHODS Posts and comments from the Facebook pages of the Ministry of Health (MOH) in Singapore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, and Public Health England (PHE) in England were extracted from January 1, 2019, to March 18, 2020. Posts published before January 1, 2020, were categorized as pre-COVID-19, while the remaining posts were categorized as peri-COVID-19 posts. COVID-19-related posts were identified and classified into themes. Metrics used for measuring outreach and engagement were frequency, mean posts per day (PPD), mean reactions per post, mean shares per post, and mean comments per post. Responses to the COVID-19 posts were measured using frequency, mean sentiment polarity, positive to negative sentiments ratio (PNSR), and positive to negative emotions ratio (PNER). Toxicity in comments were identified and analyzed using frequency, mean likes per toxic comment, and mean replies per toxic comment. Trend analysis was performed to examine how the metrics varied with key events such as when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. RESULTS The MOH published more COVID-19 posts (n=271; mean PPD 5.0) compared to the CDC (n=94; mean PPD 2.2) and PHE (n=45; mean PPD 1.4). The mean number of comments per COVID-19 post was highest for the CDC (mean CPP 255.3) compared to the MOH (mean CPP 15.6) and PHE (mean CPP 12.5). Six major themes were identified, with posts about prevention and safety measures and situation updates being prevalent across the three PHAs. The themes of the MOH’s posts were diverse, while the CDC and PHE posts focused on a few themes. Overall, response sentiments for the MOH posts (PNSR 0.94) were more favorable compared to response sentiments for the CDC (PNSR 0.57) and PHE (PNSR 0.55) posts. Toxic comments were rare (0.01%) across all PHAs. CONCLUSIONS PHAs’ extent of Facebook use for outreach purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic varied among the three PHAs, highlighting the strategies and approaches that other PHAs can potentially adopt. Our study showed that social media analysis was capable of providing insights about the communication strategies of PHAs during disease outbreaks.

Download Full-text

Divergent effects of social media use on meaning in life via loneliness and existential isolation during the coronavirus pandemic

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships ◽

10.1177/02654075211066922 ◽

2022 ◽

pp. 026540752110669

Author(s):

Peter J. Helm ◽

Tyler Jimenez ◽

Madhwa S. Galgali ◽

Megan E. Edwards ◽

Kenneth E. Vail ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Meaning In Life ◽

Media Use ◽

The United States ◽

Psychological Consequences ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Media Usage ◽

Emotional Loneliness

Stay-at-home orders issued to combat the growing number of infections during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had many psychological consequences for people including elevated stress, anxiety, and difficulty maintaining meaning in their lives. The present studies utilized cross-sectional designs and were conducted to better understand how social media usage related to people’s subjective isolation (i.e., social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential isolation) and meaning in life (MIL) during the early months of the pandemic within the United States. Study 1 found that general social media use indirectly predicted higher MIL via lower existential isolation and social isolation. Study 2 replicated these patterns and found that social media use also predicted lower MIL via higher emotional loneliness, and that the aforementioned effects occurred with active, but not passive, social media use. Findings suggest social media use may be a viable means to validate one’s experiences (i.e., reduce existential isolation) during the pandemic but may also lead to intensified feelings concerning missing others (i.e., increased emotional loneliness). This research also helps to identify potential divergent effects of social media on MIL and helps to clarify the relationships among varying types of subjective isolation.

Download Full-text

Loneliness in the United States: A 2018 National Panel Survey of Demographic, Structural, Cognitive, and Behavioral Characteristics

American Journal of Health Promotion ◽

10.1177/0890117119856551 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 (8) ◽

pp. 1123-1133 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Liana DesHarnais Bruce ◽

Joshua S. Wu ◽

Stuart L. Lustig ◽

Daniel W. Russell ◽

Douglas A. Nemecek

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Support ◽

Social Media ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Los Angeles ◽

Linear Regression Analysis ◽

The United States ◽

Physical And Mental Health ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Health Behavior Intervention

Purpose: To inform health behavior intervention design, we sought to quantify loneliness and its correlates, including social media use, among adults in the United States. Design: Cross-sectional research panel questionnaire. Setting: Responses were gathered from individuals in all 50 states surveyed via Internet from February 2018 to March 2018. Participants: A total of 20 096 US panel respondents aged 18+. Measures: The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale (theoretical score range = 20-80) was administered along with demographic, structural, cognitive, and behavioral items. Analysis: After calibrating the sample to population norms, we conducted multivariable linear regression analysis. Results: The overall mean survey-weighted loneliness score was 44.03 (standard error = 0.09). Social support (standardized β [sβ] = −0.19) and meaningful daily interactions (sβ = −0.14) had the strongest associations with lower loneliness, along with reporting good relationships, family life, physical and mental health, friendships, greater age, being in a couple, and balancing one’s daily time. Social anxiety was most strongly associated with greater loneliness (sβ = +0.20), followed by self-reported social media overuse (sβ = +0.05) and daily use of text-based social media (sβ = +0.03). Conclusion: Our findings confirm that loneliness decreases with age, and that being in a relationship as well as everyday behavioral factors in people’s control are most strongly related to loneliness. Population health promotion efforts to reduce loneliness should focus on improving social support, decreasing social anxiety, and promoting healthy daily behaviors.

Download Full-text

Policy liberalism and source of news predict pandemic-related health behaviors and trust in the scientific community

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0252670 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (6) ◽

pp. e0252670

Author(s):

Madeleine Reinhardt ◽

Matthew B. Findley ◽

Renee A. Countryman

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Health Behaviors ◽

News Media ◽

Perceived Risk ◽

Scientific Community ◽

The United States ◽

World Health ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Health Measures

In March of 2020, the United States was confronted with a major public health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aimed to identify what factors influence adherence to recently implemented public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, trust of scientific organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on information pertaining to the pandemic, and level of perceived risk. Data were collected from June 30, 2020 to July 22, 2020 on 951 adult residents of the United States using an online survey through Microsoft Forms. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the strongest predictors for compliance to pandemic-related health measures, trust in the scientific community, and perceived risk. Results showed that the strongest predictor of all variables of interest was degree of policy liberalism. Additionally, participants who consumed more conservative news media conformed less to the pandemic health guidelines and had less trust in the scientific community. Degree of policy liberalism was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between gender and conformity to pandemic-related health behaviors. These findings have concerning implications that factors like degree of policy liberalism and source of news are more influential in predicting adherence to life-saving health measures than established risk factors like pre-existing health conditions.

Download Full-text

A Social Network Model of the COVID-19 Pandemic

10.1101/2020.03.23.20041798 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Pei Jun Zhao

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Social Distance ◽

The United States ◽

Viral Transmission ◽

Model Parameters ◽

Weighted Graphs ◽

The Public ◽

Health Measures ◽

The U.S

AbstractIn the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, currently vaccines and specific anti-viral treatment are not yet available. Thus, preventing viral transmission by case isolation, quarantine, and social distancing is essential to slowing its spread. Here we model social networks using weighted graphs, where vertices represent individuals and edges represent contact. As public health measures are implemented, connectivity in the graph decreases, resulting in lower effective reproductive numbers, and reduced viral transmission. For COVID-19, model parameters were derived from the coronavirus epidemic in China, validated by epidemic data in Italy, then applied to the United States. We calculate that, in the U.S., the public is able to contain viral transmission by limiting the average number of contacts per person to less than 7 unique individuals over each 5 day period. This increases the average social distance between individuals to 10 degrees of separation.

Download Full-text

Identifying Influential Factors in the Discussion Dynamics of Emerging Health Issues on Social Media: Computational Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.17175 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lida Safarnejad ◽

Qian Xu ◽

Yaorong Ge ◽

Arunkumar Bagavathi ◽

Siddharth Krishnan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Social Media ◽

Time Series ◽

Real World ◽

Driving Forces ◽

The United States ◽

Web Based ◽

Health Agencies ◽

Influential Users

BACKGROUND Social media has become a major resource for observing and understanding public opinions using infodemiology and infoveillance methods, especially during emergencies such as disease outbreaks. For public health agencies, understanding the driving forces of web-based discussions will help deliver more effective and efficient information to general users on social media and the web. OBJECTIVE The study aimed to identify the major contributors that drove overall Zika-related tweeting dynamics during the 2016 epidemic. In total, 3 hypothetical drivers were proposed: (1) the underlying Zika epidemic quantified as a time series of case counts; (2) sporadic but critical real-world events such as the 2016 Rio Olympics and World Health Organization’s Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) announcement, and (3) a few influential users’ tweeting activities. METHODS All tweets and retweets (RTs) containing the keyword Zika posted in 2016 were collected via the Gnip application programming interface (API). We developed an analytical pipeline, EventPeriscope, to identify co-occurring trending events with Zika and quantify the strength of these events. We also retrieved Zika case data and identified the top influencers of the Zika discussion on Twitter. The influence of 3 potential drivers was examined via a multivariate time series analysis, signal processing, a content analysis, and text mining techniques. RESULTS Zika-related tweeting dynamics were not significantly correlated with the underlying Zika epidemic in the United States in any of the four quarters in 2016 nor in the entire year. Instead, peaks of Zika-related tweeting activity were strongly associated with a few critical real-world events, both planned, such as the Rio Olympics, and unplanned, such as the PHEIC announcement. The Rio Olympics was mentioned in >15% of all Zika-related tweets and PHEIC occurred in 27% of Zika-related tweets around their respective peaks. In addition, the overall tweeting dynamics of the top 100 most actively tweeting users on the Zika topic, the top 100 users receiving most RTs, and the top 100 users mentioned were the most highly correlated to and preceded the overall tweeting dynamics, making these groups of users the potential drivers of tweeting dynamics. The top 100 users who retweeted the most were not critical in driving the overall tweeting dynamics. There were very few overlaps among these different groups of potentially influential users. CONCLUSIONS Using our proposed analytical workflow, EventPeriscope, we identified that Zika discussion dynamics on Twitter were decoupled from the actual disease epidemic in the United States but were closely related to and highly influenced by certain sporadic real-world events as well as by a few influential users. This study provided a methodology framework and insights to better understand the driving forces of web-based public discourse during health emergencies. Therefore, health agencies could deliver more effective and efficient web-based communications in emerging crises.

Download Full-text