Tracking collective emotions in 16 countries during COVID-19: a novel methodology for identifying major emotional events using Twitter.

Using messages posted on Twitter, this study develops a new approach to estimating collective emotions (CEs) within countries. It applies time series methodology to develop and demonstrate a novel application of CEs to identify emotional events that are significant at the societal level. The study analyzes over 200 million words from over 10 million Twitter messages posted in 16 countries during the first 120 days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Daily levels of collective anxiety and positive emotions were estimated using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count's (LIWC) psychologically validated lexicon. The time series estimates of the two collective emotions were analyzed for structural breaks, which mark a significant change in a series due to an external shock. External shocks to collective emotions come from events that are of shared emotional relevance, and this study develops a new approach to identifying them. In the COVID-19 Twitter posts used in the study, analysis of structural breaks showed that in all 16 countries, a reduction in collective anxiety and an increase in positive emotions followed the WHO's declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Announcements of economic support packages and social restrictions also had similar impacts in some countries. This indicates that the reduction of uncertainty around the evolving COVID-19 situation had a positive emotional impact on people in all the countries in the study. The study contributes to the field of CEs and applied research in collective psychological phenomena.

Deliberation on Childhood Vaccination in Canada: Public Input on Ethical Trade-Offs in Vaccination Policy.

BACKGROUND: Policy decisions about childhood vaccination require consideration of multiple, sometimes conflicting, public health and ethical imperatives. Examples of these decisions are whether vaccination should be mandatory and, if so, whether to allow for non-medical exemptions. In this article we argue that these policy decisions go beyond typical public health mandates and therefore require democratic input. METHODS: We report on the design, implementation, and results of a deliberative public forum convened over four days in Ontario, Canada, on the topic of childhood vaccination. RESULTS: 25 participants completed all four days of deliberation and collectively developed 20 policy recommendations on issues relating to mandatory vaccinations and exemptions, communication about vaccines and vaccination, and AEFI (adverse events following immunization) compensation and reporting. Notable recommendations include unanimous support for mandatory childhood vaccination in Ontario, the need for broad educational communication about vaccination, and the development of a no-fault compensation scheme for AEFIs. There was persistent disagreement among deliberants about the form of exemptions from vaccination (conscience, religious beliefs) that should be permissible, as well as appropriate consequences if parents do not vaccinate their children. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that conducting deliberative democratic processes on topics that are polarizing and controversial is viable and should be further developed and implemented to support democratically legitimate and trustworthy policy about childhood vaccination.

Risk, trust and patients' strategic choices of healthcare practitioners.

Research on patients' choice of healthcare practitioners has focussed on countries with regulated and controlled healthcare markets. In contrast, low- and middle-income countries have a pluralistic landscape where untrained, unqualified and unlicensed informal healthcare providers (IHPs) provide significant share of services. Using qualitative data from 58 interviews in an Indian village, this paper explores how patients choose between IHPs and qualified practitioners in the public and formal private sectors. The study found that patients' choices were structurally constrained by accessibility and affordability of care and choosing a practitioner from any sector presented some risk. Negotiation and engagement with risks depended on perceived severity of the health condition and trust in practitioners. Patients had low institutional trust in public and formal private sectors, whereas IHPs operated outside any institutional framework. Consequently, people relied on relational or competence-derived interpersonal trust. Care was sought from formal private practitioners for severe issues due to high-competence-based interpersonal trust in them, whereas for other issues IHPs were preferred due to high relationship-based interpersonal trust. The research shows that patients develop a strategic approach to practitioner choice by using trust to negotiate risks, and crucially, in low- and middle-income countries IHPs bridge a gap by providing accessible and affordable care imbued with relational-interpersonal trust.