Analyzing Reddit Forums Specific to Abortion That Yield Diverse Dialogues Pertaining to Medical Information Seeking and Personal Worldviews: Data Mining and Natural Language Processing Comparative Study.

BACKGROUND: Attitudes toward abortion have historically been characterized via dichotomized labels, yet research suggests that these labels do not appropriately encapsulate beliefs on abortion. Rather, contexts, circumstances, and lived experiences often shape views on abortion into more nuanced and complex perspectives. Qualitative data have also been shown to underpin belief systems regarding abortion. Social media, as a form of qualitative data, could reveal how attitudes toward abortion are communicated publicly in web-based spaces. Furthermore, in some cases, social media can also be leveraged to seek health information. OBJECTIVE: This study applies natural language processing and social media mining to analyze Reddit (Reddit, Inc) forums specific to abortion, including r/Abortion (the largest subreddit about abortion) and r/AbortionDebate (a subreddit designed to discuss and debate worldviews on abortion). Our analytical pipeline intends to identify potential themes within the data and the affect from each post. METHODS: We applied a neural network-based topic modeling pipeline (BERTopic) to uncover themes in the r/Abortion (n=2151) and r/AbortionDebate (n=2815) subreddits. After deriving the optimal number of topics per subreddit using an iterative coherence score calculation, we performed a sentiment analysis using the Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner to assess positive, neutral, and negative affect and an emotion analysis using the Text2Emotion lexicon to identify potential emotionality per post. Differences in affect and emotion by subreddit were compared. RESULTS: The iterative coherence score calculation revealed 10 topics for both r/Abortion (coherence=0.42) and r/AbortionDebate (coherence=0.35). Topics in the r/Abortion subreddit primarily centered on information sharing or offering a source of social support; in contrast, topics in the r/AbortionDebate subreddit centered on contextualizing shifting or evolving views on abortion across various ethical, moral, and legal domains. The average compound Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner scores for the r/Abortion and r/AbortionDebate subreddits were 0.01 (SD 0.44) and -0.06 (SD 0.41), respectively. Emotionality scores were consistent across the r/Abortion and r/AbortionDebate subreddits; however, r/Abortion had a marginally higher average fear score of 0.36 (SD 0.39). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that people posting on abortion forums on Reddit are willing to share their beliefs, which manifested in diverse ways, such as sharing abortion stories including how their worldview changed, which critiques the value of dichotomized abortion identity labels, and information seeking. Notably, the style of discourse varied significantly by subreddit. r/Abortion was principally leveraged as an information and outreach source; r/AbortionDebate largely centered on debating across various legal, ethical, and moral abortion domains. Collectively, our findings suggest that abortion remains an opaque yet politically charged issue for people and that social media can be leveraged to understand views and circumstances surrounding abortion.

An exploratory examination of attitudes toward illegal abortion in the U.S. through endorsement of various punishments.

OBJECTIVES: We examined people's (1) attitudes about abortion using an item from Pew Research Center (i.e., whether abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases) and (2) support for different punishments if abortion were illegal in all cases for different people involved in the abortion-the pregnant person, their partner, an informant and the healthcare provider. STUDY DESIGN: We administered a web-based survey to 2,204 U.S. adults using quota-based sampling. Post-stratification weights were applied to the data so that the sample was comparable to U.S. benchmarks for gender, race, Hispanic ethnicity, age, education, and political affiliation. We compared endorsement of various punishments for a pregnant person, their partner, informant, and healthcare provider. Additionally, we compared the endorsement of these punishments across response options of Pew's abortion legality item. RESULTS: Overall, most of our sample indicated that abortion should be legal in most (34%) or legal in all scenarios (21%). However, if abortion were illegal in all circumstances, most of our sample supported some form of punishment for the pregnant person (72%-75%), their partner (65%-68%), and healthcare providers (70%-71%), but not informants (47%-49%). Among the endorsed punishments, therapy/education typically received the most support. CONCLUSIONS: Because of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision and the subsequent overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion is illegal in a significant number of states and a punishable offense. Our findings suggest that current punishments associated with many of these laws are counter to public sentiment. IMPLICATIONS: Despite majority support for some punishment, the categories of "no punishment" or therapy/education had the most support. Given the lack of plurality or majority support for fines or incarceration, abortion laws including these punishments, including bounty-style laws passed in Texas and Oklahoma, may be out of step with public opinion.

Ethnoracial child health inequalities in Latin America: Multilevel evidence from Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru.

Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Peru, between 1986 and 2015, this paper explores the relationship between self-identifying as indigenous and/or afro-descendant on child under-5 mortality (n=20,770), stunting (n=15,828), wasting (n=15,827), and anemia (n=13,294). Rural-urban risk analysis suggest that indigenous and/or afro-descendent respondents have higher risk of under-5 mortality, stunting, wasting, and anemia. The same pattern is observed for cross-country risks, particularly for Bolivia and Colombia. Results from logistic multilevel regression models suggest that, even after controlling for geographic, socioeconomic, individual, reproductive, healthcare, and nutritional variables, self-identifying as indigenous and/or afro-descendant is associated with a higher risk of child stunting and wasting, but not necessarily a higher risk of under-5 mortality and anemia. While previous research has largely focused on the protective role of maternal education, results from this study suggest that paternal education, as well as, individual characteristics and early reproductive decisions, play a significant role in child health outcomes. My findings imply that efforts to improve child health in Latin America should account for ethnicity and/or race, since minority ethnoracial groups have higher risk of childhood morbidity in the region. In addition, these efforts should accompany education for both men and women, as well as, information about the effects of reproductive decisions on their children's health.