#DoctorsSpeakUp: Lessons learned from a pro-vaccine Twitter event.

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Social Media Analysis
• Vaccinology

Background:

• Growing anti-vaccine activism on social media prompted the #DoctorsSpeakUp event.
• The event aimed to foster pro-vaccine advocacy.
• Analysis of Twitter content surrounding the event was conducted.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize Twitter users involved in the #DoctorsSpeakUp event.
• To quantify the proportion of pro-vaccine versus anti-vaccine sentiment in tweets.
• To analyze the content of tweets related to the event.

Main Methods:

• Collected tweets using Twitter's Filtered Streams Interface for the #DoctorsSpeakUp hashtag.
• Conducted thematic content analysis on a subsample of tweets (n=966) with two independent coders.
• Utilized Botometer to assess the likelihood of accounts being automated (bots).

Main Results:

• Of 847 relevant tweets, 28.8% were from parents and 8.0% from health professionals.
• A significant majority of tweets (78.9%) expressed anti-vaccine sentiment compared to pro-vaccine sentiment (19.7%).
• Tweet sentiment was significantly associated with account type and content, with 5.4% of users classified as bots.

Conclusions:

• A coordinated anti-vaccine response was observed during the #DoctorsSpeakUp event.
• Findings suggest strategies for vaccine advocates to enhance social media effectiveness.
• Recommendations include optimizing hashtag usage and pre-developing pro-vaccine messages for wider promotion.