scholarly journals The Impact of Public Health Events on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy on Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zizheng Zhang ◽  
Guanrui Feng ◽  
Jiahong Xu ◽  
Yimin Zhang ◽  
Jinhui Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Health Events ◽  
Model Training ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

BACKGROUND The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to every country worldwide. A call for global vaccination for COVID-19 plays a pivotal role in the fight against this virus. With the development of COVID-19 vaccines, public willingness to get vaccinated has become an important public health concern, considering the vaccine hesitancy observed worldwide. Social media is powerful in monitoring public attitudes and assess the dissemination, which would provide valuable information for policy makers. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the responses of vaccine positivity on social media when major public events (major outbreaks) or major adverse events related to vaccination (COVID-19 or other similar vaccines) were reported. METHODS A total of 340,783 vaccine-related posts were captured with the poster’s information on Weibo, the largest social platform in China. After data cleaning, 156,223 posts were included in the subsequent analysis. Using pandas and SnowNLP Python libraries, posts were classified into 2 categories, positive and negative. After model training and sentiment analysis, the proportion of positive posts was computed to measure the public positivity toward the COVID-19 vaccine. RESULTS The positivity toward COVID-19 vaccines in China tends to fluctuate over time in the range of 45.7% to 77.0% and is intuitively correlated with public health events. In terms of gender, males were more positive (70.0% of the time) than females. In terms of region, when regional epidemics arose, not only the region with the epidemic and surrounding regions but also the whole country showed more positive attitudes to varying degrees. When the epidemic subsided temporarily, positivity decreased with varying degrees in each region. CONCLUSIONS In China, public positivity toward COVID-19 vaccines fluctuates over time and a regional epidemic or news on social media may cause significant variations in willingness to accept a vaccine. Furthermore, public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination vary from gender and region. It is crucial for policy makers to adjust their policies through the use of positive incentives with prompt responses to pandemic-related news to promote vaccination acceptance.

Who wants COVID-19 vaccination to be compulsory? The impact of party cues, left-right ideology, and populism

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572110619
Author(s):  
Christina-Marie Juen ◽  
Michael Jankowski ◽  
Robert A Huber ◽  
Torren Frank ◽  
Leena Maaß ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Vaccination Rate ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Public Health Expert ◽  
Compulsory Vaccination ◽  
Health Expert ◽  
The Impact

Vaccine hesitancy is one of the major obstacles for successfully combating the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve a sufficiently high vaccination rate, calls for compulsory vaccinations have been discussed controversially. This study analyses what drives citizens’ attitudes towards compulsory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we are interested in the impact of party- and expert cues on public attitudes. We further expect populist attitudes to be an important indicator of the rejection of compulsory vaccination due to their scepticism towards science. To test these expectations, we rely on a cueing experiment conducted on a sample of 2265 German citizens. We test for the effects of in-party and out-party cues as well as public health expert cues. We find evidence for in-party cues, meaning that respondents adjust their position on this issue in the direction of their most preferred party. Similar results can be found for public health expert cues. However, there is no evidence for out-party cues. Further analyses reveal that support for compulsory vaccinations is not affected by left-right placement directly. Instead, only the combination of right-wing attitudes and populism negatively affects support for compulsory vaccination.

scholarly journals An Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic: The Impact of American Public Sources on Sentiment, Conversation, and Physician Behaviour Towards Hydroxychloroquine

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Emily W.L. Chan ◽  
Ginah Choi ◽  
Kendrew S.K. Wong ◽  
Shirley Zeng ◽  
Anish Verma
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Health Organizations ◽  
Public Sentiment ◽  
Research Publications ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 infodemic, described as an overabundance of both accurate and inaccurate information, poses a significant public health risk in spreading fear and provoking inappropriate prescription. The overwhelming and often contradictory information on as potential treatments for COVID-19 have contributed to this infodemic. Public sources including the US federal government, health organizations, and research publications have released conflicting statements on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. Previous research has not analyzed the influence of these sources on public attitudes and conversation towards the drug. To evaluate this impact, changes in the number and sentiment of tweets tagged with the hashtag or keyword “hydroxychloroquine” from March 12th to June 22nd, 2020 in relation to public sources were analyzed. We found that the US government had a statistically significant influence on public attitudes and behaviour (p < 0.001), unlike health organizations and research publications. Public sentiment on hydroxychloroquine has also been observed to become more negative over time, suggesting that public attitudes towards controversial topics can change. This study also found a positive correlation between public sentiment of hydroxychloroquine and other drugs (i.e. azithromycin and remdesivir) which indicates that public sources disseminating hydroxychloroquine-related information could also affect public attitudes towards related treatments. In a public health crisis, all statements and actions from public sources regarding contentious topics like hydroxychloroquine should be made with caution. To mitigate the disproportionate influence of public sources in an infodemic, we recommend three solutions: (a) education to empower individuals of all ages to develop critical thinking and digital literacy skills; (b) stronger action from social media platforms in labeling misinformation; (c) and cooperation between entities with strong influence (e.g. federal government) and other sources for public health measures. Together, these recommendations could resolve shortcomings existent with a single approach. Future research should be conducted with a custom trained model for sentiment analysis. It would also be valuable to conduct a similar version of the study on other social media platforms as well as for public health issues beyond COVID-19.

scholarly journals MODELLING THE SPREAD OF TUBERCULOSIS, INCLUDING DRUG RESISTANCE AND HIV: A CASE STUDY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S WESTERN PROVINCE

2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMMA G. THOMAS ◽  
HANNAH E. BARRINGTON ◽  
KAMALINI M. LOKUGE ◽  
GEOFFRY N. MERCER
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Drug Resistance ◽  
Health Concern ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Detailed Model ◽  
Western Province ◽  
Short Course ◽  
Directly Observed Treatment ◽  
The Impact

AbstractHigh tuberculosis (TB) prevalence in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a serious public health concern. The epidemic in this region is exacerbated by the presence of drug-resistant TB strains as well as HIV infection. This presents a public health threat not only locally but also to Australia due to the high potential for cross-border transmission between PNG’s Western Province and the Australian Torres Strait Islands. We present two mathematical models of TB in the Western Province: a simple model of the underlying TB dynamics, and a detailed model which accounts for the additional effects of HIV and drug resistance. The detailed model is used to make quantitative predictions about the impact of expanding the TB case detection rate under the Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course treatment regimen. This paper provides a framework for future investigation into the economic costs and public health benefits of potential TB interventions in this region, with the eventual aim of providing recommendations to guide policy makers in both PNG and Australia.

EXPRESS: The Gift of Data: Industry-Led Food Reformulation and the Obesity Crisis in Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 074391562098384
Author(s):  
Norah Campbell ◽  
Sarah Browne ◽  
Marius Claudy ◽  
Melissa Mialon ◽  
Hercberg Serge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Processed Food ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Intelligence System ◽  
Gift Economy ◽  
Nutrition Policies ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Marketing Intelligence ◽  
The Impact

Ultra-processed food manufacturers have proposed that product reformulation should be a key strategy to tackle obesity. In determining the impact of reformulation on population dietary behaviours, policy makers are often dependant on data provided by these manufacturers. Where such data are “gifted” to regulators there may be an implicit expectation of reciprocity that adversely influences nutrition policies. We sought to assess Europe’s industry-led reformulation strategy in five countries deploying critical policy studies as an approach. We found that interim results on industry-led food reformulation did not meet their targets. Information asymmetries exist between food industry and policy makers: the latter are not privy to marketing intelligence and must instead rely on data that are voluntarily donated by food industry actors. These data represent a distorted snippet of the marketing intelligence system from whence they came. Because these data indeed bear all the hallmarks of a gift, regulatory and public health authorities operate within a gift economy. The implications of this “data gift economy” are strategic delay and goal-setting when the field is not visible. Ultimately, this could diminish the implementation of public health nutrition policies that are contrary to the commercial interests of ultra-processed food producers.

scholarly journals A stochastic time-delayed model for the effectiveness of Moroccan COVID-19 deconfinement strategy

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Houssine Zine ◽  
Adnane Boukhouima ◽  
El Mehdi Lotfi ◽  
Marouane Mahrouf ◽  
Delfim F.M. Torres ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Administration ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Health Administration ◽  
Additional Degree ◽  
Epidemiological Trend ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Stochastic Time ◽  
Delayed Model

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a great threat to public health and the economy worldwide. Currently, COVID-19 evolves in many countries to a second stage, characterized by the need for the liberation of the economy and relaxation of the human psychological effects. To this end, numerous countries decided to implement adequate deconfinement strategies. After the first prolongation of the established confinement, Morocco moves to the deconfinement stage on May 20, 2020. The relevant question concerns the impact on the COVID-19 propagation by considering an additional degree of realism related to stochastic noises due to the effectiveness level of the adapted measures. In this paper, we propose a delayed stochastic mathematical model to predict the epidemiological trend of COVID-19 in Morocco after the deconfinement. To ensure the well-posedness of the model, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a positive solution. Based on the large number theorem for martingales, we discuss the extinction of the disease under an appropriate threshold parameter. Moreover, numerical simulations are performed in order to test the efficiency of the deconfinement strategies chosen by the Moroccan authorities to help the policy makers and public health administration to make suitable decisions in the near future.

scholarly journals 1414. #Vaccine Twitter Influencers: is it Just About Reach and Followers?

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S714-S715
Author(s):  
Jean-Etienne Poirrier ◽  
Theodore Caputi ◽  
John Ayers ◽  
Mark Dredze ◽  
Sara Poston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Small Proportion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background A small number of powerful users (“influencers”) dominates conversations on social media platforms: less than 1% of Twitter accounts have at least 3,000 followers and even fewer have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Beyond simple metrics (number of tweets, retweets...) little is known about these “influencers”, particularly in relation to their role in shaping online narratives about vaccines. Our goal was to describe influential Twitter accounts that are driving conversations about vaccines and present new metrics of influence. Methods Using publicly-available data from Twitter, we selected posts from 1-Jan-2016 to 31-Dec-2018 and extracted the top 5% of accounts tweeting about vaccines with the most followers. Using automated classifiers, we determined the location of these accounts, and grouped them into those that primarily tweet pro- versus anti-vaccine content. We further characterized the demographics of these influencer accounts. Results From 25,381 vaccine-related tweets available in our sample representing 10,607 users, 530 accounts represented the top 5% by number of followers. These accounts had on average 1,608,637 followers (standard deviation=5,063,421) and 340,390 median followers. Among the accounts for which sentiment was successfully estimated by the classifier, 10.4% (n=55) posted anti-vaccine content and 33.6% (n=178) posted pro-vaccine content. Of the 55 anti-vaccine accounts, 50% (n=18) of the accounts for which location was successfully determined were from the United States. Of the 178 pro-vaccine accounts, 42.5% (n=54) were from the United States. Conclusion This study showed that only a small proportion of Twitter accounts (A) post about vaccines and (B) have a high follower count and post anti-vaccine content. Further analysis of these users may help researchers and policy makers better understand how to amplify the impact of pro-vaccine social media messages. Disclosures Jean-Etienne Poirrier, PhD, MBA, The GSK group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Theodore Caputi, PhD, Good Analytics Inc. (Consultant) John Ayers, PhD, GSK (Grant/Research Support) Mark Dredze, PhD, Bloomberg LP (Consultant)Good Analytics (Consultant) Sara Poston, PharmD, The GlaxoSmithKline group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Cosmina Hogea, PhD, GlaxoSmithKline (Employee, Shareholder)

Fake news on Facebook: examining the impact of heuristic cues on perceived credibility and sharing intention

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khudejah Ali ◽  
Cong Li ◽  
Khawaja Zain-ul-abdin ◽  
Muhammad Adeel Zaffar
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Perceived Credibility ◽  
News Credibility ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Active Processing

PurposeAs the epidemic of online fake news is causing major concerns in contexts such as politics and public health, the current study aimed to elucidate the effect of certain “heuristic cues,” or key contextual features, which may increase belief in the credibility and the subsequent sharing of online fake news.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a 2 (news veracity: real vs fake) × 2 (social endorsements: low Facebook “likes” vs high Facebook “likes”) between-subjects experimental design (N = 239).FindingsThe analysis revealed that a high number of Facebook “likes” accompanying fake news increased the perceived credibility of the material compared to a low number of “likes.” In addition, the mediation results indicated that increased perceptions of news credibility may create a situation in which readers feel that it is necessary to cognitively elaborate on the information present in the news, and this active processing finally leads to sharing.Practical implicationsThe results from this study help explicate what drives increased belief and sharing of fake news and can aid in refining interventions aimed at combating fake news for both communities and organizations.Originality/valueThe current study expands upon existing literature, linking the use of social endorsements to perceived credibility of fake news and information, and sheds light on the causal mechanisms through which people make the decision to share news articles on social media.

Gamifying the Media Classroom

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 22-49
Author(s):  
Katie Seaborn ◽  
Deborah I. Fels ◽  
Rob Bajko ◽  
Jaigris Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Student Engagement ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
The Media ◽  
Game Elements ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

Gamification, or the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has become a popular and increasingly accepted method of engaging learners in educational settings. However, there have been few comparisons of different kinds of courses and students, particularly in terms of discipline and content. Additionally, little work has reported on course instructor/designer perspectives. Finally, few studies on gamification have used a conceptual framework to assess the impact on student engagement. This paper reports on findings from evaluating two gamified multimedia and social media undergraduate courses over the course of one semester. Findings from applying a multidimensional framework suggest that the gamification approach taken was moderately effective for students overall, with some elements being more engaging than others in general and for each course over time." Post-term questionnaires posed to the instructors/course designers revealed congruence with the student perspective and several challenges pre- and post-implementation, despite the use of established rules for gamifying curricula.

scholarly journals Antecedents of Vaccine Hesitancy in WEIRD and East Asian Contexts

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel S. Courtney ◽  
Ana-Maria Bliuc
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Mmr Vaccine ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Vaccination Rates ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Effective Science

Following decreasing vaccination rates over the last two decades, understanding the roots of vaccine hesitancy has become a public health priority. Vaccine hesitancy is linked to scientifically unfounded fears around the MMR vaccine and autism which are often fuelled by misinformation spread on social media. To counteract the effects of misinformation about vaccines and in particular the falling vaccination rates, much research has focused on identifying the antecedents of vaccine hesitancy. As antecedents of vaccine hesitancy are contextually dependent, a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to be successful in non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic) populations, and even in certain (non-typical) WEIRD sub-populations. Successful interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy must be based on understanding of the specific context. To identify potential contextual differences in the antecedents of vaccine hesitancy, we review research from three non-WEIRD populations in East Asia, and three WEIRD sub-populations. We find that regardless of the context, mistrust seems to be the key factor leading to vaccine hesitancy. However, the object of mistrust varies across WEIRD and non-WEIRD populations, and across WEIRD subgroups suggesting that effective science communication must be mindful of these differences.

scholarly journals COVID-19 as an “Infodemic” in Public Health: Critical Role of the Social Media

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debanjan Banerjee ◽  
K. S. Meena
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Impact

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has emerged as a significant and global public health crisis. Besides the rising number of cases and fatalities, the outbreak has also affected economies, employment and policies alike. As billions are being isolated at their homes to contain the infection, the uncertainty gives rise to mass hysteria and panic. Amidst this, there has been a hidden epidemic of “information” that makes COVID-19 stand out as a “digital infodemic” from the earlier outbreaks. Repeated and detailed content about the virus, geographical statistics, and multiple sources of information can all lead to chronic stress and confusion at times of crisis. Added to this is the plethora of misinformation, rumor and conspiracy theories circulating every day. With increased digitalization, media penetration has increased with a more significant number of people aiding in the “information pollution.” In this article, we glance at the unique evolution of COVID-19 as an “infodemic” in the hands of social media and the impact it had on its spread and public reaction. We then look at the ways forward in which the role of social media (as well as other digital platforms) can be integrated into social and public health, for a better symbiosis, “digital balance” and pandemic preparedness for the ongoing crisis and the future.

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