Currently submitted to: JMIR Infodemiology
Date Submitted: Jun 4, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 18, 2026 - Aug 13, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Characterizing Online Opinion on Vaping and E-Cigarettes in X (Formerly Twitter) Discourse in Singapore: Infodemiology Study
ABSTRACT
Multilingual sentiment analysis and BERTopic modeling on 4,321 vaping-related posts from X (formerly Twitter) in Singapore spanning 2018 to 2025 revealed that discourse was predominantly neutral, followed by negative and then positive, and was primarily event-driven with 18 topics clustered into four dimensions – legislation and policy, illicit consumption, illicit sales and smuggling, and health risks – with notable patterns including “nanny-state” criticisms of Singapore’s vaping laws, public support for enforcement crackdowns, and an evolving illicit distribution landscape shifting from physical smuggling to Telegram networks; sentiment spikes corresponded to legislative milestones, enforcement actions, publicized incidents, and health-risk communication, with negative sentiment directed primarily at offenders rather than the ban itself; together, these findings highlight the value of infodemiology for understanding public responses in legally restrictive settings and point to implementation frameworks such as the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, Dynamic Sustainability Framework, and Policy Feedback Theory as guides for more responsive and adaptive vaping-control strategies.
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