Facebook and Twitter vaccine sentiment in response to measles outbreaks

• Published in: Health informatics journal Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 1116 - 1132
• Main Authors: Deiner, Michael S, Fathy, Cherie, Kim, Jessica, Niemeyer, Katherine, Ramirez, David, Ackley, Sarah F, Liu, Fengchen, Lietman, Thomas M, Porco, Travis C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2019; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Confidence intervals; Immunization; Measles; Sentiment analysis; Social networks; Vaccines; United States > US; patient compliance; treatment refusal; measles; social media; vaccination
• ISSN: 1460-4582; 1741-2811
• DOI: 10.1177/1460458217740723

Social media posts regarding measles vaccination were classified as pro-vaccination, expressing vaccine hesitancy, uncertain, or irrelevant. Spearman correlations with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–reported measles cases and differenced smoothed cumulative case counts over this period were reported (using time series bootstrap confidence intervals). A total of 58,078 Facebook posts and 82,993 tweets were identified from 4 January 2009 to 27 August 2016. Pro-vaccination posts were correlated with the US weekly reported cases (Facebook: Spearman correlation 0.22 (95% confidence interval: 0.09 to 0.34), Twitter: 0.21 (95% confidence interval: 0.06 to 0.34)). Vaccine-hesitant posts, however, were uncorrelated with measles cases in the United States (Facebook: 0.01 (95% confidence interval: −0.13 to 0.14), Twitter: 0.0011 (95% confidence interval: −0.12 to 0.12)). These findings may result from more consistent social media engagement by individuals expressing vaccine hesitancy, contrasted with media- or event-driven episodic interest on the part of individuals favoring current policy.