Hongying Dai1,2,3, Jianqiang Hao4. 1. Health Services & Outcomes Research, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. 2. Department of Biomedical & Health Informatics, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. 3. Department of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. 4. Bellevue University, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: There is an ongoing debate about harm and benefit of e-cigarettes, usage of which has rapidly increased in recent years. By separating non-commercial (organic) tweets from commercial tweets, we seek to evaluate the general public's attitudes towards e-cigarettes. METHODS: We collected tweets containing the words 'e-cig', 'e-cigarette', 'e-liquid', 'vape', 'vaping', 'vapor' and 'vaporizer' from 23 July to 14 October 2015 (n=757 167). A multilabel Naïve Bayes model was constructed to classify tweets into 5 polarities (against, support, neutral, commercial, irrelevant). We further analysed the prevalence of e-cigarette tweets, geographic variations in these tweets and the impact of socioeconomic factors on the public attitudes towards e-cigarettes. RESULTS: Opinions from organic tweets about e-cigarettes were mixed (against 17.7%, support 10.8% and neutral 19.4%). The organic-against tweets delivered strong educational information about the risks of e-cigarette use and advocated for the general public, especially youth, to stop vaping. However, the organic-against tweets were outnumbered by commercial tweets and organic-support tweets by a ratio of over 1 to 3. Higher prevalence of organic tweets was associated with states with higher education rates (r=0.60, p<0.0001), higher percentage of black and African-American population (r=0.34, p=0.01), and higher median household income (r=0.33, p=0.02). The support rates for e-cigarettes were associated with states with fewer persons under 18 years old (r=-0.33, p=0.02) and a higher percentage of female population (r=0.3, p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The organic-against tweets raised public awareness of potential health risks and could aid in preventing non-smokers, adolescents and young adults from using e-cigarettes. Opinion polarities about e-cigarettes from social networks could be highly influential to the general public, especially youth. Further educational campaigns should include measuring their effectiveness. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.
BACKGROUND: There is an ongoing debate about harm and benefit of e-cigarettes, usage of which has rapidly increased in recent years. By separating non-commercial (organic) tweets from commercial tweets, we seek to evaluate the general public's attitudes towards e-cigarettes. METHODS: We collected tweets containing the words 'e-cig', 'e-cigarette', 'e-liquid', 'vape', 'vaping', 'vapor' and 'vaporizer' from 23 July to 14 October 2015 (n=757 167). A multilabel Naïve Bayes model was constructed to classify tweets into 5 polarities (against, support, neutral, commercial, irrelevant). We further analysed the prevalence of e-cigarette tweets, geographic variations in these tweets and the impact of socioeconomic factors on the public attitudes towards e-cigarettes. RESULTS: Opinions from organic tweets about e-cigarettes were mixed (against 17.7%, support 10.8% and neutral 19.4%). The organic-against tweets delivered strong educational information about the risks of e-cigarette use and advocated for the general public, especially youth, to stop vaping. However, the organic-against tweets were outnumbered by commercial tweets and organic-support tweets by a ratio of over 1 to 3. Higher prevalence of organic tweets was associated with states with higher education rates (r=0.60, p<0.0001), higher percentage of black and African-American population (r=0.34, p=0.01), and higher median household income (r=0.33, p=0.02). The support rates for e-cigarettes were associated with states with fewer persons under 18 years old (r=-0.33, p=0.02) and a higher percentage of female population (r=0.3, p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The organic-against tweets raised public awareness of potential health risks and could aid in preventing non-smokers, adolescents and young adults from using e-cigarettes. Opinion polarities about e-cigarettes from social networks could be highly influential to the general public, especially youth. Further educational campaigns should include measuring their effectiveness. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.
Entities:
Keywords:
Media; Social marketing; Socioeconomic status
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