JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The pandemic of mpox has caused widespread public concern around the world. The spread of misinformation through the internet and social media could lead to infodemic that posed significant challenges to mpox control.

Objective:

The aim of this review is to summarize mpox-related infodemiology studies to obtain the characteristics, influence, prevention and control measures of mpox infodemic and proposed the prospect of future research.

Methods:

The scoping review was conducted based on a structured five-step methodological framework. Pubmed, Web of Science (WOS), Embase ,Scopus for mpox-related infodemiology studies written in English, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and WANFANG for articles written in Chinese were searched comprehensively by August 31, 2023. After study selection and data extraction, the main topics of mpox infodemic were categorized and summarized in four aspects, including trends of online information search volume, content topics of mpox-related online posts and comments, emotional and sentiment characteristics of online content, and prevention and control measures for mpox infodemic.

Results:

A total of 1701 articles were retrieved from the databases according to keywords and 54 studies were included in the final analysis. After WHO’s declaration of a mpox PHEIC in July, 2022, the number of related researches began growing rapidly. The Google was the most widely used search engine platform (16.67%, 9/54) and Twitter was the most used social media applications (44.44%, 24/54) for researchers. The top three counties for mpox infodemic articles publication were the United States (23 studies), China (8 studies) and the United Kingdom (7 studies). Mpox-related online search volume skyrocketed at the beginning of mpox outbreak, especially when World Health Organization provided important declarations. There was a large amount of misinformation with negative sentiment, and discriminatory and hostile contents against gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men.

Conclusions:

Given the characteristics and limitations of previous explorations of mpox infodemic, it is essential for researchers and policymakers to establish comprehensive index systems to evaluate the risk of infodemic, build and optimize open-source large-scale network information database, construct mpox epidemic prediction and early warning models based on information on online platforms and social media, and conduct target digital health interventions through online platforms.