scholarly journals Studying Public Perception about Vaccination: A Sentiment Analysis of Tweets

Author(s):  
Viju Raghupathi ◽  
Jie Ren ◽  
Wullianallur Raghupathi

Text analysis has been used by scholars to research attitudes toward vaccination and is particularly timely due to the rise of medical misinformation via social media. This study uses a sample of 9581 vaccine-related tweets in the period 1 January 2019 to 5 April 2019. The time period is of the essence because during this time, a measles outbreak was prevalent throughout the United States and a public debate was raging. Sentiment analysis is applied to the sample, clustering the data into topics using the term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) technique. The analyses suggest that most (about 77%) of the tweets focused on the search for new/better vaccines for diseases such as the Ebola virus, human papillomavirus (HPV), and the flu. Of the remainder, about half concerned the recent measles outbreak in the United States, and about half were part of ongoing debates between supporters and opponents of vaccination against measles in particular. While these numbers currently suggest a relatively small role for vaccine misinformation, the concept of herd immunity puts that role in context. Nevertheless, going forward, health experts should consider the potential for the increasing spread of falsehoods that may get firmly entrenched in the public mind.

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Akers ◽  
Jennifer M. VanDemark-Teplica ◽  
Alex Kiss ◽  
Donna M. Alfieri ◽  
Maureen B. Jennings

Background: The purpose of this study was to ascertain public perception of the terms podiatry and DPM. Methods: We distributed a survey to 847 people in ten states across the United States. It was hypothesized that most respondents would be less familiar with the DPM degree than the term podiatrist. It was also expected that people would choose MD over DPM for more complex procedures. Results: The majority of respondents selected a podiatrist and a DPM as a foot specialist, almost one-half selected DPM for foot surgery, but only one-third stated they would have foot surgery done by a DPM if they had a heart problem. In addition, it was hypothesized that respondents would choose the contrived PMD over DPM simply because PMD looks more like MD; this was not shown to be true. Conclusions: Although there are gaps in the public knowledge, our study revealed a greater familiarity with podiatry and the DPM degree than originally thought. (J Am Podiatr Med Assoc 99(3): 223–231, 2009)


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Canruo Zou ◽  
Xueting Wang ◽  
Zidian Xie ◽  
Dongmei Li

After the approval of the sales of IQOS in the United States market, discussions about IQOS have become active on social media. Twitter is a popular social media platform to understand public opinions toward IQOS. This study aims to explore public perceptions toward IQOS on Twitter in the United States. IQOS-related tweets from the United States between November 19, 2019, and August 24, 2020, were collected using a Twitter streaming application programming interface (API). Sentiment analysis was performed to determine whether the public perceptions toward IQOS were positive, neutral, or negative. In addition, topics discussed in these tweets were manually coded. From November 2019 to August 2020, the number of tweets discussing IQOS was relatively constant except for a peak starting from July 7, 2020, which lasted for 4 days. Among IQOS tweets with positive sentiments, the most popular topic is “IQOS is safer than cigarettes,” followed by “IQOS helps quit smoking.” Among tweets with negative sentiments, the most popular topic is “illegal marketing/selling to youth,” followed by “health risks/fire hazards.” “FDA approval/regulation” is the most popular topic for tweets with neutral sentiments. After the announcement of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforcement policy on unauthorized flavored e-cigarette products on January 2, 2020, the proportion of tweets with positive attitudes toward IQOS significantly increased, while the proportion of negative tweets significantly decreased. Our study showed that the public perception of IQOS in the United States became more positive after the FDA enforcement policy on flavored e-cigarettes. While many Twitter users thought IQOS is safer than cigarettes and helps quit smoking, some Twitter users complained about the illegal marketing and health risks of IQOS. These findings provide useful information on future tobacco regulations.


Uncertainty ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 46-59
Author(s):  
Kostas Kampourakis ◽  
Kevin McCain

Scientists are experts in their respective domains because they have the knowledge, credentials, experience, and affirmation of their peers. They are, therefore, the experts when it comes to scientific matters. But individual scientists cannot know everything. Consequently, what matters is not the views of individual scientists but the collective and consensus view of the scientific community. However, the public is divided on the issue of whether to trust science and scientists. Polls in the United States show that scientists are relatively highly respected compared to other professionals, but, at the same time, about half of the people only have some trust in scientists. Worse than that, political orientation rather than science knowledge seems to have a major impact on attitudes toward science. Finally, even though there is a consensus view among scientists on topics like climate change, the public perception is that scientists are divided on such issues.


Author(s):  
Laura Isabel Serna

Latinos have constituted part of the United States’ cinematic imagination since the emergence of motion pictures in the late 19th century. Though shifting in their specific contours, representations of Latinos have remained consistently stereotypical; Latinos have primarily appeared on screen as bandits, criminals, nameless maids, or sultry señoritas. These representations have been shaped by broader political and social issues and have influenced the public perception of Latinos in the United States. However, the history of Latinos and film should not be limited to the topic of representation. Latinos have participated in the film industry as actors, creative personnel (including directors and cinematographers), and have responded to representations on screen as members of audiences with a shared sense of identity, whether as mexicanos de afuera in the early 20th century, Hispanics in the 1980s and 1990s, or Latinos in the 21st century. Both participation in production and reception have been shaped by the ideas about race that characterize the film industry and its products. Hollywood’s labor hierarchy has been highly stratified according to race, and Hollywood films that represent Latinos in a stereotypical fashion have been protested by Latino audiences. While some Latino/a filmmakers have opted to work outside the confines of the commercial film industry, others have sought to gain entry and reform the industry from the inside. Throughout the course of this long history, Latino representation on screen and on set has been shaped by debates over international relations, immigration, citizenship, and the continuous circulation of people and films between the United States and Latin America.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 598-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isha Ann Emhoff ◽  
Ellen Fugate ◽  
Nir Eyal

A recent measles outbreak in the United States was linked to a single source, yet it spanned eighteen jurisdictions and infected 121 people. Forty-seven states currently allow legal exemption from vaccination on religious grounds, eighteen of which also allow it on philosophical grounds. Recent research usually accepts a fundamental right to vaccine exemption and primarily seeks ways to protect herd immunity while also respecting that right, for example, by keeping the exemption available yet harder to procure or by imposing torts for infection-related injury. We argue that when herd immunity is at risk, any moral claim to exemption from vaccination on conscientious, philosophical, or religious grounds is overridden.Our argument rests on an analogy to a series of situations in which a person puts others at risk through philosophically or religiously motivated choices. In these situations, intuitively, there is no claim-right to compromise the safety of others. Similarly, we propose, there is no claim-right to refuse vaccination, regardless of one's conscience, when refusal is sufficiently likely to seriously affect herd immunity and the safety of others. We also address several counterarguments. The lack of a claim-right to exemption when herd immunity is at risk does not mean, however, that it is always prudent for the state to force vaccination, or even that forcing vaccinations must be legal. Alternatives to forced vaccination may prove wiser and more conducive to high vaccination rates.


Author(s):  
Mary Elizabeth ◽  
Basile Chopas

Chapter 1 traces the evolution in Italians’ social, political, and economic status in the United States, beginning with the effects of early twentieth-century immigration law, and conveys how their integration into American society influenced wartime policies. This chapter argues that Italians’ progression in the labor market coincided with their changing racial identity and white consciousness, but that political involvement was more instrumental in raising the public perception of Italians. This chapter also explains how the FBI built a domestic intelligence program through the collection of information about subversive individuals or organizations several years before U.S. involvement in World War II. A joint agreement in July 1941 between the War Department and the Justice Department established policy for handling suspicious persons of enemy nations residing in the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 382-397
Author(s):  
J. Marvin Herndon ◽  
Mark Whiteside

While the public perception of the recent attempts to unseat duly-elected U.S. President Donald J. Trump is thought to be solely of national origin, there is strong evidence of a more pernicious, United Nations’ sanctioned environmental assault on America and on American citizens. The United States and other sovereign nations are in the midst of a highly organized, covert environmental warfare assault, underlain by deception and deceit, orchestrated by a foreign entity, and perpetrated in America by the U.S. Air Force and its contractors, and facilitated by intelligence-agency operatives. The intent, to slowly and insidiously sicken, weaken, and debilitate citizenry, cause weather and climate chaos, cripple agriculture, and devastate the environment, is so cleverly underwritten and camouflaged as to have gone unnoticed in the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America and, presumably, is unknown to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it is described here. American military officers have the responsibility to protect their own citizens, especially as they possess the means to destroy human and environmental health. Systematically poisoning the air Americans breathe, harming human and environmental health, causing weather and climate chaos, damaging agriculture, and deceiving the public as to the adverse human and environmental health consequences – all under secret orders originating from a foreign entity – we allege, violates not only their Oath of Office, but is tantamount to treason. The United States Air Force co-optation, deceit, and unquestioning capitulation to a foreign entity should be of grave concern to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With due humility we must emphasize that no military asset is worth damaging human and environmental health, especially on a national or planetary-scale, and especially due to a deceptively-worded, Trojan horse, United Nations international treaty whose signatories presumably were duped into signing in the false belief that they were preventing hostile environmental warfare.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-281
Author(s):  
Sylvia Dümmer Scheel

El artículo analiza la diplomacia pública del gobierno de Lázaro Cárdenas centrándose en su opción por publicitar la pobreza nacional en el extranjero, especialmente en Estados Unidos. Se plantea que se trató de una estrategia inédita, que accedió a poner en riesgo el “prestigio nacional” con el fin de justificar ante la opinión pública estadounidense la necesidad de implementar las reformas contenidas en el Plan Sexenal. Aprovechando la inusual empatía hacia los pobres en tiempos del New Deal, se construyó una imagen específica de pobreza que fuera higiénica y redimible. Ésta, sin embargo, no generó consenso entre los mexicanos. This article analyzes the public diplomacy of the government of Lázaro Cárdenas, focusing on the administration’s decision to publicize the nation’s poverty internationally, especially in the United States. This study suggests that this was an unprecedented strategy, putting “national prestige” at risk in order to explain the importance of implementing the reforms contained in the Six Year Plan, in the face of public opinion in the United States. Taking advantage of the increased empathy felt towards the poor during the New Deal, a specific image of hygienic and redeemable poverty was constructed. However, this strategy did not generate agreement among Mexicans.


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