Public sentiment analysis and topic modeling regarding COVID-19 vaccines on the Reddit social media platform: A call to action for strengthening vaccine confidence.
J Infect Public Health
; 14(10): 1505-1512, 2021 Oct.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1454306
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic fueled one of the most rapid vaccine developments in history. However, misinformation spread through online social media often leads to negative vaccine sentiment and hesitancy.METHODS:
To investigate COVID-19 vaccine-related discussion in social media, we conducted a sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling on textual data collected from 13 Reddit communities focusing on the COVID-19 vaccine from Dec 1, 2020, to May 15, 2021. Data were aggregated and analyzed by month to detect changes in any sentiment and latent topics.RESULTS:
Polarity analysis suggested these communities expressed more positive sentiment than negative regarding the vaccine-related discussions and has remained static over time. Topic modeling revealed community members mainly focused on side effects rather than outlandish conspiracy theories.CONCLUSION:
Covid-19 vaccine-related content from 13 subreddits show that the sentiments expressed in these communities are overall more positive than negative and have not meaningfully changed since December 2020. Keywords indicating vaccine hesitancy were detected throughout the LDA topic modeling. Public sentiment and topic modeling analysis regarding vaccines could facilitate the implementation of appropriate messaging, digital interventions, and new policies to promote vaccine confidence.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Media
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
J Infect Public Health
Journal subject:
Communicable Diseases
/
Public Health
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
J.jiph.2021.08.010
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