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The Impact of Public Health Events on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy on Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study.
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2021 11 09; 7(11):e32936.JP

Abstract

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.

Links

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Authors+Show Affiliations

Zhang Z
Jinan University-University of Birmingham Joint Institute, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China. School of Mathematics, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Feng G
School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Xu J
School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Zhang Y
School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Li J
School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
Huang J
Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore, Singapore. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.
Akinwunmi B
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States. Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Boston, MA, United States.
Zhang CJP
School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong).
Ming WK
Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health, Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China (Hong Kong). School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

MeSH

COVID-19COVID-19 VaccinesChinaHumansPandemicsPublic HealthSARS-CoV-2Social Media

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article

Language

eng

PubMed ID

34591782

Citation

Zhang, Zizheng, et al. "The Impact of Public Health Events On COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy On Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study." JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, vol. 7, no. 11, 2021, pp. e32936.
Zhang Z, Feng G, Xu J, et al. The Impact of Public Health Events on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy on Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2021;7(11):e32936.
Zhang, Z., Feng, G., Xu, J., Zhang, Y., Li, J., Huang, J., Akinwunmi, B., Zhang, C. J. P., & Ming, W. K. (2021). The Impact of Public Health Events on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy on Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 7(11), e32936. https://doi.org/10.2196/32936
Zhang Z, et al. The Impact of Public Health Events On COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy On Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2021 11 9;7(11):e32936. PubMed PMID: 34591782.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - The Impact of Public Health Events on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy on Chinese Social Media: National Infoveillance Study. AU - Zhang,Zizheng, AU - Feng,Guanrui, AU - Xu,Jiahong, AU - Zhang,Yimin, AU - Li,Jinhui, AU - Huang,Jian, AU - Akinwunmi,Babatunde, AU - Zhang,Casper J P, AU - Ming,Wai-Kit, Y1 - 2021/11/09/ PY - 2021/08/16/received PY - 2021/09/20/accepted PY - 2021/09/20/revised PY - 2021/10/1/pubmed PY - 2021/11/16/medline PY - 2021/9/30/entrez KW - COVID-19 KW - China KW - Weibo KW - attitude KW - data mining KW - hesitancy KW - infoveillance KW - public health KW - sentiment KW - sentiment analysis KW - social media KW - surveillance KW - vaccine SP - e32936 EP - e32936 JF - JMIR public health and surveillance JO - JMIR Public Health Surveill VL - 7 IS - 11 N2 - 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. SN - 2369-2960 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/34591782/The_Impact_of_Public_Health_Events_on_COVID_19_Vaccine_Hesitancy_on_Chinese_Social_Media:_National_Infoveillance_Study_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -