Vaping discussion in the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study using Twitter data

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Digital Epidemiology
• Social Media Analysis

Background:

• COVID-19 concerns raised questions about electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) users' increased risk of infection.
• Social media platforms are key channels for health information and can influence health behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze public discussions on vaping within COVID-19 related Twitter posts.
• To understand public perceptions, attitudes, and concerns regarding vaping during the pandemic.
• To identify potential misinformation and misconceptions about vaping in the context of COVID-19.

Main Methods:

• Collected 11,337 unique tweets related to vaping and COVID-19 from March 2020 to February 2021.
• Utilized Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modeling and sentiment analysis on the tweet data.
• Filtered out duplicate and bot-generated accounts to ensure data integrity.

Main Results:

• Identified 8 key topics, including the link between vaping and COVID-19 risk, EVALI similarities, and youth protection.
• Observed a significant spike in tweets following a study linking vaping to higher COVID-19 infection risk in young adults.
• Found predominantly negative public sentiment towards vaping, shifting slightly more positive over time.

Conclusions:

• Public discourse on vaping during COVID-19 shifted towards anti-vaping sentiment and negative perceptions, contrasting pre-pandemic online discussions.
• New topics emerged, focusing on health risks and regulation, differing from earlier pro-vaping social media trends.
• Continuous social media monitoring and public health intervention using these platforms are recommended for disseminating accurate information on vaping and cessation.