scholarly journals Public Voice via Social Media: Role in Cooperative Governance during Public Health Emergency

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (18) ◽  
pp. 6840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Yang ◽  
Yingying Su
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Product Innovation ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Policy Evolution ◽  
Public Voice ◽  
Cooperative Governance

With the development of the Internet, social networking sites have empowered the public to directly express their views about social issues and hence contribute to social change. As a new type of voice behavior, public voice on social media has aroused wide concern among scholars. However, why public voice is expressed and how it influences social development and betterment in times of public health emergencies remains unstudied. A key point is whether governments can take effective countermeasures when faced with public health emergencies. In such situation, public voice is of great significance in the formulation and implementation of coping policies. This qualitive study uses China’s Health Code policy under COVID-19 to explore why the public performs voice behavior on social media and how this influences policy evolution and product innovation through cooperative governance. A stimulus-cognition-emotion-behavior model is established to explain public voice, indicating that it is influenced by cognitive processes and public emotions under policy stimulus. What is more, as a form of public participation in cooperative governance, public voice plays a significant role in promoting policy evolution and product innovation, and represents a useful form of cooperation with governments and enterprises to jointly maintain social stability under public health emergencies

London faces pressure to bolster virus communication

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Contributory Factor ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
General Lack ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Public Health Messages ◽  
Mixed Messages

Subject UK COVID-19 communication. Significance Communication is critically important during public health emergencies. The United Kingdom’s communications have contained mixed messages and a general lack of transparency. Several decisions with strong scientific grounding have not been adequately explained, resulting in many government achievements being undermined or overlooked. This is also a major contributory factor in the government’s eroding public support. Impacts The content and delivery of future addresses will determine how closely the public adheres to changes in guidance. The speed at which sectors of the economy can re-open is heavily dependent on the success of the communications strategy. The ongoing infodemic being played out on social media will continue to hamper the communication of public health messages.

scholarly journals PUBLIC REACTION TO COVID-19 ON TWITTER: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

2020 ◽  
pp. 349-358
Author(s):  
Akif Mustafa ◽  
Imaduddin Ansari ◽  
Subham Kumar Mohanta ◽  
Shalem Balla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Public Reaction

Emergency situations typically lead to a plethora of public attention on social media platforms like ‘Twitter’. Twitter provides a unique opportunity for public health researchers to analyze untampered information shared during a disease outbreak. Considering the ongoing public health emergency, we conducted a study investigating the public reaction to COVID-19 pandemic around the world using in-depth thematic analysis of Twitter data. A dataset of 212846 tweets was retrieved over a period of seven days (from April 13, 2020, to April 19, 2020) via Twitter Application Programme Interface (API). The following five keywords were used to collect the tweets: “coronavirus”, “covid-19”, “corona”, “covid”, “covid19”. After data filtering and cleaning 6348 tweets were randomly selected for in-depth thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was done manually using a two-level coding guide. A total of six main themes emerged from the analysis: ‘sentiments and feelings’, ‘Information’, ‘General Discussion’, ‘Politics’, ‘Food’, and ‘Sarcasm or humor’. The aforementioned themes were divided into 26 sub-themes. The results of the thematic analysis show that 30.1% of the tweets were regarding ‘sentiments and feelings’, 15.6% were regarding ‘politics’, and 6.5% were related to ‘sarcasm or humor’. The present study is the first study that has analyzed the public response to COVID-19 on Twitter. The study demonstrates that social media platforms (like Twitter) can be used to conduct infodemiological studies related to public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the results of this study will be of potential interest to policymakers, health authorities, stakeholders, and public health and social science researchers. KEYWORDS:COVID-19, Twitter, Social Media, Coronavirus, Lockdown, Pandemic

Trend of Parental Refusal or Delay of Childhood Vaccinations

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meagan Marie Daoust
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
Health Consequences ◽  
Missed Opportunities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Parental Refusal

The healthcare trend of parental refusal or delay of childhood vaccinations will be investigated through a complex Cynefin Framework component in an economic and educational context, allowing patterns to emerge that suggest recommendations of change for the RN role and healthcare system. As a major contributing factor adding complexity to this trend, social media is heavily used for health related knowledge, making it is difficult to determine which information is most trustworthy. Missed opportunities for immunization can result, leading to economic and health consequences for the healthcare system and population. Through analysis of the powerful impact social media has on this evolving trend and public health, an upstream recommendation for RNs to respond with is to utilize reliable social media to the parents’ advantage within practice. The healthcare system should focus on incorporating vaccine-related education into existing programs and classes offered to parents, and implementing new vaccine classes for the public.

scholarly journals A Panel Evaluation of the Changes in the General Public’s Social-Media-Following of United States’ Public Health Departments during COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 215013272199545
Author(s):  
Areej Khokhar ◽  
Aaron Spaulding ◽  
Zuhair Niazi ◽  
Sikander Ailawadhi ◽  
Rami Manochakian ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
State Level ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Health Department ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Departments ◽  
The Social ◽  
The U.S

Importance: Social media is widely used by various segments of society. Its role as a tool of communication by the Public Health Departments in the U.S. remains unknown. Objective: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social media following of the Public Health Departments of the 50 States of the U.S. Design, Setting, and Participants: Data were collected by visiting the Public Health Department web page for each social media platform. State-level demographics were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was utilized to collect information regarding the Governance of each State’s Public Health Department. Health rankings were collected from “America’s Health Rankings” 2019 Annual report from the United Health Foundation. The U.S. News and World Report Education Rankings were utilized to provide information regarding the public education of each State. Exposure: Data were pulled on 3 separate dates: first on March 5th (baseline and pre-national emergency declaration (NED) for COVID-19), March 18th (week following NED), and March 25th (2 weeks after NED). In addition, a variable identifying the total change across platforms was also created. All data were collected at the State level. Main Outcome: Overall, the social media following of the state Public Health Departments was very low. There was a significant increase in the public interest in following the Public Health Departments during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: With the declaration of National Emergency, there was a 150% increase in overall public following of the State Public Health Departments in the U.S. The increase was most noted in the Midwest and South regions of the U.S. The overall following in the pandemic “hotspots,” such as New York, California, and Florida, was significantly lower. Interesting correlations were noted between various demographic variables, health, and education ranking of the States and the social media following of their Health Departments. Conclusion and Relevance: Social media following of Public Health Departments across all States of the U.S. was very low. Though, the social media following significantly increased during the early course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still remains low. Significant opportunity exists for Public Health Departments to improve social media use to engage the public better.

scholarly journals Making equal rights to health an election issue in NZ local body elections

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
P Stone ◽  
D e b Leyland
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Determinants Of Health ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Health Inequity ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Local Body

Abstract In New Zealand there are 20 district health boards (DHBs) with local elections every 3 years. There is low voter turnout for these, we suspect because the public has low cognizance of the role DHBs have in governing their health and disability system. Good governance ensures everyone whatever ethnicity, gender or sexual proclivity, from birth to old age, able or disabled, mentally well or unwell, drugfree or addicted, has equal rights of dignified access to healthcare. Without public engagement in DHB elections, the community risks having candidates elected that also don't understand their role through a preventative public health framework or human rights lens. The United Community Action Network (UCAN) developed a human rights framework and Health Charter for people driven into poverty by the costs of staying well in NZ. The framework outlines 6 social determinants of health needing protection through policy, to ensure all enjoy their rights to health. UCAN and the Public Health Association of New Zealand (PHA) partnered to raise public and the candidates' awareness during 2019 elections, of these social determinants causing inequity in health outcomes. A series of short explainer-videos were created for sharing through social media during the election build-up period, helping to promote PHA Branches' public Meet the Candidates events. Post-election, a longer film was produced to send to the elected DHB members. Our theory of change centred on spotlighting health inequity for voters, so that they would elect DHB members who had the greatest understanding and commitment to addressing this issue. With shareable videos we aimed to attract audience, raise awareness and debate the policy solutions to health inequity with candidates, enabling more informed choice amongst the voting public. Post-election, we maintain supportive relationships with the elected DHB members that promised their commitment to our Health Charter during their campaigns. Key messages Using videos and social media, local body elections provide an opportunity to promote everyone’s right to affordable healthcare, supporting and informing voter decision-making. UCAN's Health Charter is an advocacy resource for raising awareness of the social determinants of health inequity and poverty for people with mental illness, addiction and disability.

Preparedness 3.0: Addressing the Future

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 728-729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges C. Benjamin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Extreme Weather ◽  
Common Occurrence ◽  
Public Health Preparedness ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
The Future

ABSTRACTThe last 14 years has taught us that that we are facing a new reality; a reality in which public health emergencies are a common occurrence. Today, we live in a world with dangerous people without state sponsorship who are an enormous threat to our safety; one where emerging and reemerging infectious diseases are waiting to break out; a world where the benefits of globalization in trade, transportation, and social media brings threats to our communities faster and with a greater risk than ever before. Even climate change has entered into the preparedness equation, bringing with it the forces of nature in the form of extreme weather and its complications. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:728–729)

Public perception of COVID-19 vaccines from the digital footprints left on Twitter: analyzing positive, neutral and negative sentiments of Twitterati

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aasif Ahmad Mir ◽  
Sevukan Rathinam ◽  
Sumeer Gul
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
English Language ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Application Programming Interface ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Reaction ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
The Impact

PurposeTwitter is gaining popularity as a microblogging and social networking service to discuss various social issues. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic and is discussed worldwide. Social media is an instant platform to deliberate various dimensions of COVID-19. The purpose of the study is to explore and analyze the public sentiments related to COVID-19 vaccines across the Twitter messages (positive, neutral, and negative) and the impact tweets make across digital social circles.Design/methodology/approachTo fetch the vaccine-related posts, a manual examination of randomly selected 500 tweets was carried out to identify the popular hashtags relevant to the vaccine conversation. It was found that the hashtags “covid19vaccine” and “coronavirusvaccine” were the two popular hashtags used to discuss the communications related to COVID-19 vaccines. 23,575 global tweets available in public domain were retrieved through “Twitter Application Programming Interface” (API), using “Orange Software”, an open-source machine learning, data visualization and data mining toolkit. The study was confined to the tweets posted in English language only. The default data cleaning and preprocessing techniques available in the “Orange Software” were applied to the dataset, which include “transformation”, “tokenization” and “filtering”. The “Valence Aware Dictionary for sEntiment Reasoning” (VADER) tool was used for classification of tweets to determine the tweet sentiments (positive, neutral and negative) as well as the degree of sentiments (compound score also known as sentiment score). To assess the influence/impact of tweets account wise (verified and unverified) and sentiment wise (positive, neutral, and negative), the retweets and likes, which offer a sort of reward or acknowledgment of tweets, were used.FindingsA gradual decline in the number of tweets over the time is observed. Majority (11,205; 47.52%) of tweets express positive sentiments, followed by neutral (7,948; 33.71%) and negative sentiments (4,422; 18.75%), respectively. The study also signifies a substantial difference between the impact of tweets tweeted by verified and unverified users. The tweets related to verified users have a higher impact both in terms of retweets (65.91%) and likes (84.62%) compared to the tweets tweeted by unverified users. Tweets expressing positive sentiments have the highest impact both in terms of likes (mean = 10.48) and retweets (mean = 3.07) compared to those that express neutral or negative sentiments.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of the study is that the sentiments of the people expressed over one single social platform, that is, Twitter have been studied which cannot generalize the global public perceptions. There can be a variation in the results when the datasets from other social media platforms will be studied.Practical implicationsThe study will help to know the people's sentiments and beliefs toward the COVID-19 vaccines. Sentiments that people hold about the COVID-19 vaccines are studied, which will help health policymakers understand the polarity (positive, negative, and neutral) of the tweets and thus see the public reaction and reflect the types of information people are exposed to about vaccines. The study can aid the health sectors to intensify positive messages and eliminate negative messages for an enhanced vaccination uptake. The research can also help design more operative vaccine-advocating communication by customizing messages using the obtained knowledge from the sentiments and opinions about the vaccines.Originality/valueThe paper focuses on an essential aspect of COVID-19 vaccines and how people express themselves (positively, neutrally and negatively) on Twitter.

How Twitter is changing the meaning of scholarly impact and engagement: Implications for qualitative social work research

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria F Burns ◽  
Anne Blumenthal ◽  
Kathleen C Sitter
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Knowledge Mobilization ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Scholarly Impact ◽  
Perspective Drawing

Social media technologies continue to change the academic landscape. Twitter has become particularly popular in research arenas including social work and is being used for fieldwork, knowledge mobilization activities, advocacy, and professional networking. Although there has been some consideration of the benefits and risks of using social media in academia, little has been written from a qualitative social work perspective. Drawing on the example of Twitter, this article redresses this gap in the literature, by exploring how social media is changing the way research is conducted and promoted in relation to (1) measuring scholarly impact via altmetrics; (2) engaging with research participants; (3) networking and making collegial connections; and (4) advocating for social issues in the public realm. As we highlight tensions in each of these four areas, a key concern is how and for whom social media is contributing to the changing meaning of scholarly impact and engagement in research communities. We draw specific attention to how the inequalities that exist in academia writ large may be amplified on social media thus affecting overall engagement and perceived impact for researchers from marginalized social locations (e.g. gender, race, sexual orientation). We conclude by discussing specific implications of using social media in qualitative social work research and provide suggestions for future areas of inquiry.

scholarly journals The Evolution Model of Public Risk Perception Based on Pandemic Spreading Theory under Perspective of COVID-19

Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Yi-Cheng Zhang ◽  
Zhi Li ◽  
Guo-Bing Zhou ◽  
Nai-Ru Xu ◽  
Jia-Bao Liu
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Public Risk ◽  
And Control

After the occurrence of public health emergencies, due to the uncertainty of the evolution of events and the asymmetry of pandemic information, the public’s risk perception will fluctuate dramatically. Excessive risk perception often causes the public to overreact to emergencies, resulting in irrational behaviors, which have a negative impact on economic development and social order. However, low-risk perception will reduce individual awareness of prevention and control, which is not conducive to the implementation of government pandemic prevention and control measures. Therefore, it is of great significance to accurately evaluate public risk perception for improving government risk management. This paper took the evolution of public risk perception based on the COVID-19 region as the research object. First, we analyze the characteristics of infectious diseases in the evolution of public risk perception of public health emergencies. Second, we analyze the characteristics of risk perception transmission in social networks. Third, we establish the dynamic model of public risk perception evolution based on SEIR, and the evolution mechanism of the public risk perception network is revealed through simulation experiments. Finally, we provide policy suggestions for government departments to deal with public health emergencies based on the conclusions of this study.

scholarly journals Tripartite Evolutionary Game Model for Public Health Emergencies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Zhiqi Xu ◽  
Yukun Cheng ◽  
Shuangliang Yao
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Public Health Emergency ◽  
Game Model ◽  
Negative Behaviors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
Safety And Health

Public health emergencies are more related to the safety and health of the public. For the management of the public health emergencies, all parties’ cooperation is the key to preventing and controlling the emergencies. Based on the assumption of bounded rationality, we formulate a tripartite evolutionary game model, involving the local government, the enterprises, and the public, for the public health emergency, e.g., COVID-19. The evolutionary stable strategies under different conditions of the tripartite evolutionary game are explored, and the effect from different factors on the decision-makings of participants for public health emergencies is also analyzed. Numerical analysis results show that formulating reasonable subsidy measures, encouraging the participation of the public, and enforcing the punishment to enterprises for their negative behaviors can prompt three parties to cooperate in fighting against the epidemic. Our work enriches an understanding of the governance for the public health emergency and provides theoretical support for the local government and related participants to make proper decisions in public health emergencies.

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