Topics and Sentiment Surrounding Vaping on Twitter and Reddit During the 2019 e-Cigarette and Vaping Use–Associated Lung Injury Outbreak: Comparative Study

Abstract

Background Vaping or e-cigarette use has become dramatically more popular in the United States in recent years. e-Cigarette and vaping use–associated lung injury (EVALI) cases caused an increase in hospitalizations and deaths in 2019, and many instances were later linked to unregulated products. Previous literature has leveraged social media data for surveillance of health topics. Individuals are willing to share mental health experiences and other personal stories on social media platforms where they feel a sense of community, reduced stigma, and empowerment. Objective This study aimed to compare vaping-related content on 2 popular social media platforms (ie, Twitter and Reddit) to explore the context surrounding vaping during the 2019 EVALI outbreak and to support the feasibility of using data from both social platforms to develop in-depth and intelligent vaping detection models on social media. Methods Data were extracted from both Twitter (316,620 tweets) and Reddit (17,320 posts) from July 2019 to September 2019 at the peak of the EVALI crisis. High-throughput computational analyses (sentiment analysis and topic analysis) were conducted. In addition, in-depth manual content analyses were performed and compared with computational analyses of content on both platforms (577 tweets and 613 posts). Results Vaping-related posts and unique users on Twitter and Reddit increased from July 2019 to September 2019, with the average post per user increasing from 1.68 to 1.81 on Twitter and 1.19 to 1.21 on Reddit. Computational analyses found the number of positive sentiment posts to be higher on Reddit (P<.001, 95% CI 0.4305-0.4475) and the number of negative posts to be higher on Twitter (P<.001, 95% CI –0.4289 to −0.4111). These results were consistent with the clinical content analyses results indicating that negative sentiment posts were higher on Twitter (273/577, 47.3%) than Reddit (184/613, 30%). Furthermore, topics prevalent on both platforms by keywords and based on manual post reviews included mentions of youth, marketing or regulation, marijuana, and interest in quitting. Conclusions Post content and trending topics overlapped on both Twitter and Reddit during the EVALI period in 2019. However, crucial differences in user type and content keywords were also found, including more frequent mentions of health-related keywords on Twitter and more negative health outcomes from vaping mentioned on both Reddit and Twitter. Use of both computational and clinical content analyses is critical to not only identify signals of public health trends among vaping-related social media content but also to provide context for vaping risks and behaviors. By leveraging the strengths of both Twitter and Reddit as publicly available data sources, this research may provide technical and clinical insights to inform automatic detection of social media users who are vaping and may benefit from digital intervention and proactive outreach strategies on these platforms.

Characteristics of Intimate Partner Violence and Survivor’s Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights From Subreddits Related to Intimate Partner Violence

“…The data size of the previous studies ranged from 50 to over 600 when they conducted the qualitative analysis. The average number of the analyzed OPs from the previous studies we reviewed was approximately 300: 50 ( Lyons & Brewer, 2022 ), 190 ( Thomas et al, 2019 ), 200 ( Graves et al, 2022 ), 259 ( Kepner et al, 2022 ), 300 ( Arshonsky et al, 2022 ), 305 ( Nutley et al, 2021 ), 470 ( Redondo-Sama et al, 2021 ), and 613 ( Wu et al, 2022 ). The OPs were downloaded into Microsoft Excel and Word files for data annotation.…”

“…In addition, 17% of Black and 14% of Hispanic adults (17% of White adults) reported having ever used Reddit ( Pew Research Center, 2021 ). Reddit allows users to remain completely anonymous, cultivating rich discussions about sensitive health-related topics like drug use and addiction ( Arshonsky et al, 2022 ; Graves et al, 2022 ), anxiety ( Low et al, 2020 ), eating disorder ( Nutley et al, 2021 ), vaping ( Wu et al, 2022 ), and suicidal ideation ( Redondo-Sama et al, 2021 ). Presumably, such anonymity attracts many IPV survivors to Reddit, who wish to share their experiences, ask questions, and exchange information with other survivors covertly.…”

“…Previous studies using Reddit data aimed to automatically classify health outcomes, uncover embedded patterns of language use (e.g., sentiment or frequently used words) ( Low et al, 2020 ), or extract meanings or themes ( Arshonsky et al, 2022 ; Kepner et al, 2022 ; Nutley et al, 2021 ; Thomas et al, 2019 ). The methods used included natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning ( Low et al, 2020 ), purely qualitative analysis (e.g., thematic analysis or content analysis) ( Arshonsky et al, 2022 ; Kepner et al, 2022 ; Nutley et al, 2021 ; Thomas et al, 2019 ), or both ( Wu et al., 2022 ). Most of the studies adopted a cross-sectional study design, in which they collected Reddit data one time during a certain period of time.…”

“…The size of the analyzed data greatly varied depending on the study’s purpose and method. For instance, studies using NLP and machine learning used hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Reddit posts, whereas qualitative studies used as small as 50 ( Lyons & Brewer, 2022 ) up to hundreds of Reddit posts for in-depth analysis ( Kepner et al, 2022 ; Nutley et al, 2021 ; Redondo-Sama et al, 2021 ; Wu et al, 2022 ).…”