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Despite pediatric populations representing a smaller proportion of COVID-19 cases and having a less severe prognosis, those belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups are at an increased risk of developing more severe COVID-19-related outcomes. Vaccine coverage is crucial to pandemic mitigation efforts, yet since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has increased and routine pediatric immunizations have decreased. Limited research exists on how vaccine hesitancy may contribute to low pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake among racial and ethnic minority populations. This study aimed to characterize COVID-19 vaccine-related discussion and sentiment among Twitter users, particularly among racial and ethnic minority users. We used the Twitter application programming interface to collect tweets and replies. Tweets were selected by filtering for keywords associated with COVID-19 vaccines and pediatric-related terms. From this corpus of tweets, we used the Biterm Topic Model to output topics and examined the top 200 retweeted tweets that were coded for pediatric COVID-19 vaccine relevance. Relevant tweets were analyzed using an inductive coding approach to characterize pediatric COVID-19 vaccine-related themes. Replies to relevant tweets were collected and coded. User metadata were assessed for self-reporting of race or ethnic group affiliation and verified account status. A total of 863,007 tweets were collected from October 2020 to October 2021. After outputting Biterm Topic Model topics and reviewing the 200 most retweeted tweets, 208,666 tweets and 3905 replies were identified as being pediatric COVID-19 vaccine related. The majority (150,262/208,666, 72.01%) of tweets expressed vaccine-related concerns. Among tweets discussing vaccine confidence, user replies expressing agreement were significantly outweighed by those expressing disagreement (1016/3106, 32.71% vs 2090/3106, 67.29%; P<.001). The main themes identified in the Twitter interactions were conversations regarding vaccine-related concerns including adverse side effects, concerns that the vaccine is experimental or needs more testing and should not be tested on pediatric populations, the perception that the vaccine is unnecessary given the perceived low risk of pediatric infection, and conversations associated with vaccine-related confidence (ie, the vaccine is protective). Among signal tweets and replies, we identified 418 users who self-identified as a racial minority individual and 40 who self-identified as an ethnic minority individual. Among the subcodes identified in this study, the vaccine being protective was the most discussed topic by racial and ethnic minority groups (305/444, 68.7%). Vaccine-related concerns can have negative consequences on vaccine uptake and participation in vaccine-related clinical trials. This can impact the uptake and development of safe and effective vaccines, especially among racial and ethnic minority populations.

Though vaccine hesitancy and misinformation has been pervasive online, via platforms such as Twitter, little is known about the characteristics of pediatric-specific vaccine hesitancy and how online users interact with verified user accounts that may hold larger influence. Identifying specific COVID-19 pediatric vaccine hesitancy themes and online user interaction and sentiment may help inform health promotion that addresses vaccine hesitancy more effectively among parents and caregivers of pediatric populations. Keywords were used to query the public streaming twitter application programming interface to collect tweets associated with COVID-19 pediatric vaccines. From this corpus of tweets, we used topic modeling to output 20 topic clusters of tweet content and examined the 10 most retweeted tweets from each cluster to classify for relevance to pediatric COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy topics. Tweets were inductively coded to identify specific themes. Publicly available user metadata were assessed to identify verified accounts and self-reporting of racial or ethnic identity, and parental status. Replies to tweets were coded for user sentiment. A chi-squared test was used to determine the proportion of users agreeing with misinformation tweets 863,007 tweets were collected between October 2020–October 2021. The 230 top tweets reviewed after outputting topic clusters accounted for 236,121 tweets and retweets. 84 unique tweets were identified as related to pediatric COVID-19 vaccine topics by verified users. Twenty three tweets (generating 44,509 retweets) contained misinformation-related themes. Seventy-one percent (n = 742) of user replies agreed with misinformation sentiment of the parent tweet. Main themes identified included vaccine development conspiracy, vaccine is experimental, and vaccine as a control tactic discussions. This study found that users who interacted with misinformation posted by verified accounts were more likely to agree than disagree with misinformation sentiment.

Individuals choosing permanent female contraception (PFC) face barriers including age and parity. Prior literature has focused on regret, but rarely on understanding patient perspectives. Social media is increasingly used to obtain medical information; hence this study seeks to use popular platforms to evaluate motivations, barriers, and facilitators to obtaining PFC. This study collected Twitter and Reddit posts from October 2020 to April 2023 and July 2017 to April 2023, respectively. Data was analyzed using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), followed by manual deductive coding of relevant topic clusters to characterize user-generated PFC discussions. We collected 409,641 posts including 321,267 tweets and 88,374 Reddit posts and performed content analysis using a deductive coding schema using the socio-ecological model approach to determine which posts to include in the final analysis. Sentiment analysis was conducted to detect emotions and themes most correlated with post engagement. We identified 2,356 posts, including 2,076 tweets (88.12%) and 280 subreddit posts (11.88%) from Reddit relevant to PFC discourse. Major themes included clinician (n = 246; 10.44%), patient (n = 1,388; 58.91%), interpersonal (n = 254; 10.78%), institutional (n = 311; 13.20%), and policy-level perspectives (n = 157; 6.66%) and derived 22 subthemes. The top subthemes included patients' seeking/sharing PFC advice (20.80%), discussion of successful completion or commitment/intent to undergo PFC (27.04%), interactions with healthcare providers and beliefs surrounding PFC regret (10.77%), the cost associated with PFC (7.05%), and the Dobbs V. Jackson ruling (6.66%). Additionally, there was a significant increase in posts on PFC following the Dobbs decision. Sentiment analysis shows that posts containing emotional words (both positive and negative) and words related to themes such as home, friends, and family were more likely to receive engagement on Reddit while sentiments related to health, optimism, and communication were correlated with tweet engagement. As reproductive healthcare continues to face restrictions, online communities provide insight into the motivations and decision-making behaviors of people seeking PFC. Findings can help clinicians better understand patient perspectives, and improve our ability to provide person-centered contraception care for patients desiring PFC.

Video games have rapidly become mainstream in recent decades, with over half of the US population involved in some form of digital gaming. However, concerns regarding the potential harms of excessive, disordered gaming have also risen. Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been proposed as a tentative psychiatric disorder that requires further study by the American Psychological Association (APA) and is recognized as a behavioral addiction by the World Health Organization. Substance use among gamers has also become a concern, with caffeinated or energy drinks and prescription stimulants commonly used for performance enhancement. This study aimed to identify substance use patterns and health-related concerns among gamers among a population of Reddit users. We used the public streaming Reddit application programming interface to collect and analyze all posts from the popular subreddit, r/StopGaming. From this corpus of posts, we filtered the dataset for keywords associated with common substances that may be used to enhance gaming performance. We then applied an inductive coding approach to characterize substance use behaviors, gaming genres, and physical and mental health concerns. Potential disordered gaming behavior was also identified using the tentative IGD guidelines proposed by the APA. A chi-square test of independence was used to assess the association between gaming disorder and substance use characteristics, and multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze whether mental health discussion or the mention of any substance with sufficient sample size was significantly associated with IGD. In total, 10,551 posts were collected from Reddit from June 2017 to December 2022. After filtering the dataset for substance-related keywords, 1057 were included for further analysis, of which 286 mentioned both gaming and the use of ≥1 substances. Among the 286 posts that discussed both gaming and substance use, the most mentioned substances were alcohol (n=132), cannabis (n=104), and nicotine (n=48), while the most mentioned genres were role-playing games (n=120), shooters (n=90), and multiplayer online battle arenas (n=43). Self-reported behavior that aligned with the tentative guidelines for IGD was identified in 66.8% (191/286) posts. More than half, 62.9% (180/286) of the posts, discussed a health issue, with the majority (n=144) cited mental health concerns. Common mental health concerns discussed were depression and anxiety. There was a significant association between IGD and substance use (P<.001; chi-square test), and there were significantly increased odds of IGD among those who self-reported substance use (odds ratio 2.29, P<.001) and those who discussed mental health (odds ratio 1.64, P<.03). As gaming increasingly becomes highly prevalent among various age groups and demographics, a better understanding of the interplay and convergence among disordered gaming, substance use, and negative health impacts can inform the development of interventions to mitigate risks and promote healthier gaming habits.

The aims of this study were to qualitatively characterize sentiments of Twitter users on the topic of the COVID-19 vaccine for children, specifically in response to tweets with explicit vaccine misinformation that are authored by users who are both verified by Twitter and of minority descent. The investigative approach was through a review of the literature and content classification of tweets collected from the Twitter API. A total of 863,007 tweets were collected. From which, the 200 most retweeted tweets were subjected to manual content classification to identify four tweets with explicitly vaccine misinformation that are authored by users who are both verified by Twitter and of minority descent. The replies to these four tweets were collected from the Twitter API and subjected to manual content classification to identify themes and the Twitter bios of users who authored these replies were subjected to manual content classification to identify self-reported race, ethnicity, status as a parent or grandparent, and political affiliations. The results of this study provide insight into online sentiments surrounding the COVID-19 pediatric vaccine and specifically organic user reactions to explicit vaccine misinformation. Further studies should examine other themes related to social media-based discussions of misinformation both regarding COVID-19 misinformation and broadly scientific misinformation to better inform public health communication and improve public trust in scientific advancements.

A pilot study was conducted in 1987-1988 to evaluate current health literature utilized for prenatal health education of the high risk population in County Health Departments in Arizona. Towards that end, sixty-five distinct pamphlets were obtained from Arizona's County Health Departments and assessed for reading level using the SMOG Readability Formula. The majority of the prenatal literature were found to be 10th to 12th grade reading level, higher than the typical reading level of the high risk prenatal population. A modified literature testing instrument was further utilized to test eight general prenatal pamphlets to assess the printed literature for accuracy, usability, believability, appeal, and cultural relevance. Four pamphlets of those tested, two English and two Spanish, were identified as being the most appropriate for the high risk prenatal population.