JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Attitudes towards the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and accuracy of information shared on this topic in online settings vary widely. As real-time, global exposure to online discourse about HPV immunization shapes the attitudes of people towards vaccination, the spread of misinformation and misrepresentation of scientific knowledge contributes to vaccine hesitancy.

Objective:

In this research, we aim to better understanding the type and quality of scientific research shared on Twitter by vaccine hesitant and vaccine confident communities.

Methods:

To analyze the use of scientific research on social media, we collected relevant digital trace data on Twitter using a list of keywords associated with HPV, HPV vaccines, and cervical cancer using the academic research product track Application Programming Interface (API) from January 2019-May 2021. From this dataset, we identified tweets referring to or sharing scientific literature through a Boolean search for any tweets with embedded links, hashtags, or keywords associated with scientific articles. We first used social network analysis to build a re-tweet/reply network to identify the clusters of users belonging to either the vaccine confident or hesitant communities. Second, we thematically assessed all shared articles based on typology of evidence. Finally, we compared quality of research evidence and bibliometrics between shared articles in the vaccine confident and vaccine hesitant communities.

Results:

We extracted 250 unique scientific articles (including peer-review articles, preprints, and grey literature) from approximately 1 million English-language tweets. Social networks maps were generated for the vaccine confident and vaccine hesitant communities sharing scientific research on Twitter. Vaccine hesitant communities share fewer scientific articles, but they are more broadly disseminated despite being published in less prestigious journals compared to those shared by the vaccine confident community.

Conclusions:

Vaccine hesitant communities have adopted communication tools traditionally wielded by health promotion communities. Vaccine confident communities would benefit from a more cohesive communication strategy to communicate their messages more widely and effectively.