Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Feb 9, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Feb 10, 2018 - Jul 19, 2018
Date Accepted: Jul 19, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
User-Driven Comments on a Facebook Advertisement Recruiting Canadian Parents in a Study on Immunization: Content Analysis
Background:
More people are searching for immunization information online and potentially being exposed to misinformation and antivaccination sentiment in content and discussions on social media platforms. As vaccination coverage rates remain suboptimal in several developed countries, and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases become more prevalent, it is important that we build on previous research by analyzing themes in online vaccination discussions, including those that individuals may see without actively searching for information on immunization.
Objective:
The study aimed to explore the sentiments and themes behind an unsolicited debate on immunization in order to better inform public health interventions countering antivaccination sentiment.
Methods:
We analyzed and quantified 117 user-driven open-ended comments on immunization posted in the Comments section of a Facebook advertisement that targeted Canadian parents for recruitment into a larger study on immunization. Then, 2 raters coded all comments using content analysis.
Results:
Of 117 comments, 85 were posted by unique commentators, with most being female (65/85, 77%). The largest proportion of the immunization comments were positive (51/117, 43.6%), followed by negative (41/117, 35.0%), ambiguous (20/117, 17.1%), and hesitant (5/117, 4.3%). Inaccurate knowledge (27/130, 20.8%) and misperceptions of risk (23/130, 17.7%) were most prevalent in the 130 nonpositive comments. Other claims included distrust of pharmaceutical companies or government agencies (18/130, 13.8%), distrust of the health care system or providers (15/130, 11.5%), past negative experiences with vaccination or beliefs (10/130, 7.7%), and attitudes about health and prevention (10/130, 7.7%). Almost 40% (29/74, 39%) of the positive comments communicated the risks of not vaccinating, followed by judgments on the knowledge level of nonvaccinators (13/74, 18%). A total of 10 positive comments (10/74, 14%) specifically refuted the link between autism and vaccination.
Conclusions:
The presence of more than 100 unsolicited user-driven comments on a platform not intended for discussion, nor providing any information on immunization, illustrates the strong sentiments associated with immunization and the arbitrariness of the online platforms used for immunization debates. Health authorities should be more proactive in finding mechanisms to refute misinformation and misperceptions that are propagating uncontested online. Online debates and communications on immunization need to be identified by continuous monitoring in order for health authorities to understand the current themes and trends, and to engage in the discussion.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.