What Do Social Media Influencers Say about Health? A Theory-Driven Content Analysis of Top Ten Health Influencers’ Posts on Sina Weibo

Zou, Wenxue; Zhang, Wanjiang Jacob; Tang, Lu

doi:10.1080/10810730.2020.1865486

Cited by 44 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…This is especially true for the COVID-19 vaccine topic because COVID-19 is a typical “sudden and unexpected event” [ 69 ] with medical puzzles, and the COVID-19 vaccine still calls for rigorous clinical trials and continuous surveillance [ 4 ]. According to Zou et al [ 70 ], statistical evidence and narrative evidence are 2 major types of evidence adopted to elucidate health-related topics. Professionals are more familiar with quantitative and numerical evidence owing to their professional background and working experience.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Expression Differences Between Professionals and Laypeople Toward the COVID-19 Vaccine: Text Mining Approach

Luo¹,

Ji²,

Tang³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

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Background COVID-19 is still rampant all over the world. Until now, the COVID-19 vaccine is the most promising measure to subdue contagion and achieve herd immunity. However, public vaccination intention is suboptimal. A clear division lies between medical professionals and laypeople. While most professionals eagerly promote the vaccination campaign, some laypeople exude suspicion, hesitancy, and even opposition toward COVID-19 vaccines. Objective This study aims to employ a text mining approach to examine expression differences and thematic disparities between the professionals and laypeople within the COVID-19 vaccine context. Methods We collected 3196 answers under 65 filtered questions concerning the COVID-19 vaccine from the China-based question and answer forum Zhihu. The questions were classified into 5 categories depending on their contents and description: adverse reactions, vaccination, vaccine effectiveness, social implications of vaccine, and vaccine development. Respondents were also manually coded into two groups: professional and laypeople. Automated text analysis was performed to calculate fundamental expression characteristics of the 2 groups, including answer length, attitude distribution, and high-frequency words. Furthermore, structural topic modeling (STM), as a cutting-edge branch in the topic modeling family, was used to extract topics under each question category, and thematic disparities were evaluated between the 2 groups. Results Laypeople are more prevailing in the COVID-19 vaccine–related discussion. Regarding differences in expression characteristics, the professionals posted longer answers and showed a conservative stance toward vaccine effectiveness than did laypeople. Laypeople mentioned countries more frequently, while professionals were inclined to raise medical jargon. STM discloses prominent topics under each question category. Statistical analysis revealed that laypeople preferred the “safety of Chinese-made vaccine” topic and other vaccine-related issues in other countries. However, the professionals paid more attention to medical principles and professional standards underlying the COVID-19 vaccine. With respect to topics associated with the social implications of vaccines, the 2 groups showed no significant difference. Conclusions Our findings indicate that laypeople and professionals share some common grounds but also hold divergent focuses toward the COVID-19 vaccine issue. These incongruities can be summarized as “qualitatively different” in perspective rather than “quantitatively different” in scientific knowledge. Among those questions closely associated with medical expertise, the “qualitatively different” characteristic is quite conspicuous. This study boosts the current understanding of how the public perceives the COVID-19 vaccine, in a more nuanced way. Web-based question and answer forums are a bonanza for examining perception discrepancies among various identities. STM further exhibits unique strengths over the traditional topic modeling method in statistically testing the topic preference of diverse groups. Public health practitioners should be keenly aware of the cognitive differences between professionals and laypeople, and pay special attention to the topics with significant inconsistency across groups to build consensus and promote vaccination effectively.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Expression Differences Between Professionals and Laypeople Toward the COVID-19 Vaccine: Text Mining Approach

Luo¹,

Ji²,

Tang³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…During this first round of analysis, the general purpose of the post categories included: education/research (information related to medical facts or a published article), promotion (information about an event, product, or service), inspiration/support (quotes, spiritual or community messages), personal story, celebrity story, humour, news (related to mental health or other news), outreach/awareness (public service announcements, etc.). Using similar methodology from the existing literature ( Blakemore et al, 2020 ; Zou et al, 2021 ), posts that did not fit the codebook were coded as other. It was determined that the ‘other’ category did not capture the richness of the data and so an inductive content analysis was used to generate a new code book from the ‘other’ posts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health professionals as influencers on TikTok and Instagram: What role do they play in mental health literacy and help-seeking?

Pretorius

McCashin

Coyle

2022

Internet Interventions

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“…Over the past decades, medical and media discourse have popularised various nutrients, foods and dietary patterns. Different social factors, such as national (1) and international health agencies (2) , medical associations (3) and media influencers (4)(5)(6) , promote particular nutrients, food products or dietary habits as either beneficial or harmful to one's health. This includes the consumption of red and processed meat, which is the focus of this paper.…”

Section: Values and Preferences Meat Consumption Evidence-based Healt...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Polish dietary patterns studied in the last two decades revealed changes with regard to increased meat intake (25) and reproducing traditional culinary practices associated with Eastern Europe (26) . A comparison of dietary patterns in three countries carried out in the HAPIEE study revealed that a high adherence to the traditional Eastern European diet, consisting of (1) bread and grain products, (2) potato, (3) legumes, (4) storable vegetables, (5) preserved fruits and vegetables, (6) dairy products and egg, (7) poultry, (8) processed meat products and (9) lard for cooking, was considerably higher in the Polish sample compared with the Russian and Czech samples (26) . A Polish daily menu includes bread at least once a day (90 % of Poles) and fresh and frozen vegetables and fruits (62 % and 61 %, respectively), meat and meat products (36 %) and fish (1 %) (24) .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Values and preferences influencing willingness to change red and processed meat consumption in response to evidence-based information: a mixed methods study

Prokop-Dorner

Piłat

Zając

et al. 2022

Public Health Nutr.

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Objectives: (1) to assess the extent to which omnivores are willing to stop or reduce their consumption of red and processed meat in response to evidence-based information regarding the possible reduction of cancer mortality and incidence achieved by dietary modification; (2) to identify sociodemographic categories associated with higher willingness to change meat consumption; (3) to understand the motives facilitating and hindering such a change. Design: During an initial computer-assisted web interview, respondents were presented with scenarios containing the estimates of the absolute risk reduction in overall cancer incidence and mortality tailored to their declared level of red and processed meat consumption. Respondents were asked whether they would stop or reduce their average meat consumption based on the information provided. Their dietary choices were assessed at 6-month follow-up. Additionally, we conducted semi-structured interviews to better understand the rationale for dietary practices and the perception of health information. Participants: The study was conducted among students and staff of 3 universities in Krakow, Poland. Results: Most of the 513 respondents were unwilling to change their consumption habits. We found gender to be a significant predictor of the willingness. Finally, we identified 4 themes reflecting key motives that determined meat consumption preferences: the importance of taste and texture, health consciousness, the habitual nature of cooking, and persistence of omnivorous habits. Conclusions: When faced with health information about the uncertain reduction in the risk of cancer mortality and incidence, the vast majority of study participants were unwilling to introduce changes in their consumption habits.

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What Do Social Media Influencers Say about Health? A Theory-Driven Content Analysis of Top Ten Health Influencers’ Posts on Sina Weibo

Cited by 44 publications

References 34 publications

Exploring the Expression Differences Between Professionals and Laypeople Toward the COVID-19 Vaccine: Text Mining Approach

Exploring the Expression Differences Between Professionals and Laypeople Toward the COVID-19 Vaccine: Text Mining Approach

Mental health professionals as influencers on TikTok and Instagram: What role do they play in mental health literacy and help-seeking?

Values and preferences influencing willingness to change red and processed meat consumption in response to evidence-based information: a mixed methods study

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