Mining HPV Vaccine Knowledge Structures of Young Adults From Reddit Using Distributional Semantics and Pathfinder...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Social Media Analysis
• Health Communication

Background:

• The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine prevents cancers caused by high-risk HPV types.
• Previous research analyzed online content on HPV vaccination using Pathfinder network scaling.
• This study focuses on young adults' perceptions of the HPV vaccine on Reddit.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate HPV vaccine perceptions among young adults on Reddit.
• To compare knowledge structures derived from Reddit posts with expert estimations.
• To identify implications for health communication strategies.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Pathfinder network scaling and distributional semantics.
• Learned word embeddings from Reddit posts to estimate semantic relatedness.
• Compared derived networks with human expert estimations of concept relationships.

Main Results:

• Reddit users (ages 18-26) framed the HPV vaccine domain around virus-related lifestyle impacts.
• Awareness of the HPV vaccine for cancer prevention was found to be lacking among users.
• Differences in knowledge structures between user-generated and expert content were identified.

Conclusions:

• Young adults on Reddit perceive the HPV vaccine domain differently than experts.
• Health communication needs to address the virus-framed perspective and knowledge gaps.
• Findings inform future initiatives to improve HPV vaccine awareness and uptake.