Making Sense of Online Public Health Debates with Visual Analytics Systems

Online debates occur frequently and on a wide variety of topics. Particularly, online debates about various public health topics (e.g., vaccines, statins, cannabis, dieting plans) are prevalent in today’s society. These debates are important because of the real-world implications they can have on public health. Therefore, it is important for public health stakeholders (i.e., those with a vested interest in public health) and the general public to have the ability to make sense of these debates quickly and effectively. This dissertation investigates ways of enabling sense-making of these debates with the use of visual analytics systems (VASes). VASes are computational tools that integrate data analytics (e.g., webometrics or natural language processing), data visualization, and human-data interaction. This dissertation consists of three stages. In the first stage, I describe the design and development of a novel VAS, called VINCENT (VIsual aNalytiCs systEm for investigating the online vacciNe debaTe), for making sense of the online vaccine debate. VINCENT helps users to make sense of data (i.e., online presence, geographic location, sentiments, and focus) from a collection of vaccine focused websites. In the second stage, I discuss the results of a user study of VINCENT. Participants in the study were asked to complete a set of ten sense-making tasks that required investigating a provided set of websites. Based on the positive outcomes of the study, in stage three of the dissertation I generalize the findings from the first two stages and present a framework called ODIN (Online Debate entIty aNalyzer). This framework consists of various attributes that are important to consider when analyzing online public health debates and provides methods of collecting and analyzing that data. Overall, this dissertation provides visual analytics researchers an in-depth analysis on the considerations and challenges for creating VASes to make sense of online public health debates

Methods for Social Media Monitoring Related to Vaccination: Systematic Scoping Review

This study aims to identify the methods most commonly used for monitoring different social media platforms around vaccination, their effectiveness and limitations. A systematic scoping review was conducted by applying a comprehensive search strategy to multiple databases in December 2018. The articles’ titles, abstracts and full texts were screened by two reviewers using inclusion and exclusion criteria. After data extraction, a descriptive analysis was performed to summarize the methods used to monitor and analyze social media, including data extraction tools, ethical considerations, search strategies, periods monitored, geo-localization of content, and sentiments, content and reach analyzes

Methods for Social Media Monitoring Related to Vaccination: Systematic Scoping Review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Social media has changed the communication landscape, exposing individuals to an ever-growing amount of information while also allowing them to create and share content. Although vaccine skepticism is not new, social media has amplified public concerns and facilitated their spread globally. Multiple studies have been conducted to monitor vaccination discussions on social media. However, there is currently insufficient evidence on the best methods to perform social media monitoring. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to identify the methods most commonly used for monitoring vaccination-related topics on different social media platforms, along with their effectiveness and limitations. METHODS A systematic scoping review was conducted by applying a comprehensive search strategy to multiple databases in December 2018. The articles’ titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened by two reviewers using inclusion and exclusion criteria. After data extraction, a descriptive analysis was performed to summarize the methods used to monitor and analyze social media, including data extraction tools; ethical considerations; search strategies; periods monitored; geolocalization of content; and sentiments, content, and reach analyses. RESULTS This review identified 86 articles on social media monitoring of vaccination, most of which were published after 2015. Although 35 out of the 86 studies used manual browser search tools to collect data from social media, this was time-consuming and only allowed for the analysis of small samples compared to social media application program interfaces or automated monitoring tools. Although simple search strategies were considered less precise, only 10 out of the 86 studies used comprehensive lists of keywords (eg, with hashtags or words related to specific events or concerns). Partly due to privacy settings, geolocalization of data was extremely difficult to obtain, limiting the possibility of performing country-specific analyses. Finally, 20 out of the 86 studies performed trend or content analyses, whereas most of the studies (70%, 60/86) analyzed sentiments toward vaccination. Automated sentiment analyses, performed using leverage, supervised machine learning, or automated software, were fast and provided strong and accurate results. Most studies focused on negative (n=33) and positive (n=31) sentiments toward vaccination, and may have failed to capture the nuances and complexity of emotions around vaccination. Finally, 49 out of the 86 studies determined the reach of social media posts by looking at numbers of followers and engagement (eg, retweets, shares, likes). CONCLUSIONS Social media monitoring still constitutes a new means to research and understand public sentiments around vaccination. A wide range of methods are currently used by researchers. Future research should focus on evaluating these methods to offer more evidence and support the development of social media monitoring as a valuable research design. </sec

CALIDAD Y USO DE LAS PÁGINAS WEBS EN ESPAÑOL CON INFORMACIÓN SOBRE ENFERMEDAD DE ALZHEIMER Y OTRAS DEMENCIAS DIRIGIDAS A PACIENTES Y PERSONAS CUIDADORAS

Existe en Internet un gran volumen de información sobre salud, donde esta procede de lugares considerados poco fiables. En este contexto y con la perspectiva de la poca calidad en la información sanitaria que podemos encontrar en Internet, la investigación sobre la calidad y uso de las webs con información sobre salud se ha convertido en una cuestión importante. El objetivo del presente trabajo, es evaluar la calidad y uso de las páginas webs en español con información sobre la enfermedad de Alzheimer y otras demencias dirigidas a pacientes y personas cuidadoras. Llevaremos a cabo un estudio descriptivo transversal de correlación sobre el total de webs, en español, en la cual mediremos su utilización, relevancia y calidad. Este trabajo aporta un listado de 124 webs ordenadas según relevancia, uso, tipo de recomendación y calidad. Observando que la relevancia y calidad de estas webs es baja, y que su uso viene determinado por la relevancia y el carácter general de sus contenidos.There is a large volume of health information on the Internet, where it comes from places considered unreliable. In this context and with the perspective of the poor quality of health information that can be found on the Internet, research on the quality and use of websites with health information has become an important issue. The objective of the present work is to evaluate the quality and use of web pages in Spanish with information on Alzheimer's disease and other dementias aimed at patients and caregivers. We will carry out a cross-sectional descriptive study of the total number of websites in Spanish, in which we will measure their use, relevance and quality. This work provides a list of 124 sites ordered according to relevance, use, type of recommendation and quality. Noting that the relevance and quality of these sites is low, and that their use is determined by the relevance and general nature of their contents.Tesis Univ. Jaén. Departamento de Enfermería. Leída el 15 de septiembre de 201

The Use of Intimate Partner Violence Websites: Website Awareness, Visibility, Information Quality, Perceived Usefulness, and Frequency of Use

This study aimed to determine the information needs of the intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors, as well as the awareness, visibility, information quality, perceived usefulness, and frequency of use of the IPV websites in Canada. The data in this study were collected in four stages. Firstly, a group of 139 Canadian IPV websites were identified and categorized into 36 groups. Secondly, the visibility of the websites was measured based on the average value of three factors: (1) the inlink counts; (2) the search engine rankings; and (3) the number of social media mentions of the websites. Thirdly, the quality of the websites was evaluated based on the average value of five quality indicators: (1) Accessibility; (2) Relevance ; (3) Readability; (4) Interactivity; and (5) Privacy and Data Protection. Fourthly, a group of 20 IPV websites was selected from the 139 websites for survey purpose. A total of 87 IPV survivors were recruited to provide insights into their information needs, website awareness, perceived usefulness and frequency of use of the 20 IPV websites through an online survey. This study found that the higher the visibility or quality, the higher the usage. Both perceived usefulness and frequency of use of the known websites were statistically significantly higher than those of the unknown websites. Furthermore, the findings of this study revealed evidence of minimal use of the IPV websites, which may be explained by the low awareness and low perceived usefulness of the IPV websites. Based on the findings, this study recommended that online social media marketing campaigns and outreach activities should be carried out by website owners to promote website awareness. Various strategies should also be employed to improve the visibility and quality of the websites. Given that the most desired type of information was legal resources, libraries should dedicate resources to satisfy the information needs of IPV survivors. The findings make academic contributions by producing an empirically supported evidence and benchmark for future studies

Vaccine movements on social media: A visual and network analysis

Vaccines are considered one of the most effective public health interventions, but they have been subject to opposition since they were first proposed. Anti-vaccine activists disseminate and sensationalise objections to vaccinations through various channels, including the internet and social media outlets, such as Twitter. These means allow them to reach the public directly and potentially influence their intention to vaccinate. Twitter allows users to share short textual messages and images. Although, images have strong communicative power, there is a lack of research on the networks and actors sharing vaccine images. Moreover, there are no studies on the meaning and messages of these images. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the dissemination, content, and meaning of anti- and pro-vaccine images in relation to their respective Twitter networks. A mixed methods approach was used to address the research aims, comprising social network analysis, visual content analysis, semiotics and visual social semiotics analyses. Anti-vaccine users re-shared images with each other; they provided support and strengthened their anti-vaccination beliefs. Some key actors, primarily activists and parents, influenced the information flow within the community. Anti-vaccine images claimed that vaccines are not safe, advocated against mandatory vaccinations and promoted vaccine conspiracy theories. They also provided alternative sources of information or pseudoscientific evidence supporting their messages while increasing distrust in traditional experts. The pro-vaccine users form loose connections that favour the dissemination of new vaccine information and networking. In this network, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and public health organisations influenced the dissemination of images, and the images mostly featured NGO campaigns and achievements in developing countries or promoted the flu vaccine in Western countries. In conclusion, anti- and pro-vaccine networks are insular and share different images in different ways; they use different visual communication strategies to reach their audiences. This resulted in a lack of a middle ground in visual communication of vaccines on Twitter. Addressing this gap could be an opportunity for future immunisation campaigns

A webometric analysis of the online vaccination debate

Webometrics research methods can be effectively used to measure and analyze information on the web. One topic discussed vehemently online that could benefit from this type of analysis is vaccines. We carried out a study analyzing the web presence of both sides of this debate. We collected a variety of webometric data and analyzed the data both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study found far more anti- than pro-vaccine web domains. The anti and pro sides had similar web visibility as measured by the number of links coming from general websites and Tweets. However, the links to the pro domains were of higher quality measured by PageRank scores. The result from the qualitative content analysis confirmed this finding. The analysis of site ages revealed that the battle between the two sides had a long history and is still ongoing. The web scene was polarized with either pro or anti views and little neutral ground. The study suggests ways that professional information can be promoted more effectively on the web. The study demonstrates that webometrics analysis is effective in studying online information dissemination. This kind of analysis can be used to study not only health information but other information as well. © 2017 ASIS&