Public discourse and debate about vaccines in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic: a qualitative content analysis of Twitter

COVID-19 Response of the Journal Public Health Reports (PHR), March 2020-March 2023

OBJECTIVE

Publication science is the scholarly study of various aspects of the academic publishing process. Its applications to COVID-19 literature have been limited. Here, we describe COVID-19 submissions to, and resulting articles published by, the journal Public Health Reports (PHR), an important resource for US public health practice.

METHODS

We reviewed PHR's COVID-19 submissions and articles published between March 27, 2020, and March 27, 2023. We coded each article for article type, author affiliation, the categories listed in PHR's call for COVID-19 papers, and the public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

RESULTS

During the study period, PHR received 1545 COVID-19 submissions and published 190 of those articles in a collection, COVID-19 Response. The COVID-19 Response collection included 102 research articles, 29 case study/practice articles, and 24 commentaries. The corresponding author of more than half (52.1%; n = 99) of the articles was affiliated with academia. By the categories listed in PHR's call for COVID-19 papers, 51 articles addressed health disparities, 38 addressed public health surveillance, and 34 addressed COVID-19 vaccination. By the CDC public health emergency preparedness and response capabilities, 87 articles addressed public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigation, 38 addressed community preparedness, and 32 addressed community recovery. The percentage of articles focused on policy/law was higher early in the pandemic (2020-2021) than later (2022-2023) (9.5% vs <3.0%). During the latter period, articles largely focused on vaccination (12.8%) and contact tracing (10.6%).

CONCLUSIONS

Articles published in PHR's COVID-19 Response collection covered a broad range of topics and were authored by contributors from diverse organizations. Our characterization of the COVID-19 output of a representative US public health practice journal can help academic publishing better address informational needs of public health responders.

Community Level Correlates of COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Hesitancy in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Introduction: Evidence exists that individual-level sociodemographic factors contribute to vaccine hesitancy, but it is unknown how community-level factors affect COVID-19 booster dose hesitancy. The current study aims to fill this knowledge gap by comparing data from a nationwide survey on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy with a community-level indicator, i.e., the Distressed Communities Index (DCI). Methods: Attitudes toward vaccinations, vaccine literacy, COVID-19 vaccine confidence index, and trust were measured using a 48-item, psychometrically valid and reliable survey tool. In this study, 2138 survey participants residing in the United States were divided into quintiles of varying community distress levels based on their zip codes using the DCI. Data were analyzed through Chi-square, one-way ANOVA, and post hoc analysis with Tukey's test. Results: A significantly higher proportion of participants from the distressed communities had lower trust than their prosperous counterparts (26.6% vs. 37.6%, p < 0.001). On the contrary, participants from the prosperous communities had significantly higher vaccine confidence index scores than those in distressed communities (2.22 ± 1.13 vs. 1.70 ± 1.01, p < 0.001). Conclusions: These findings affirm the importance of developing community-level interventions to promote trust in COVID-19 vaccinations and increase booster dose uptake. From these results, future studies can examine the efficacy of various community-level interventions.

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase interactions in SARS-CoV-2 infection

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) are ancient enzymes that serve a foundational role in the efficient and accurate translation of genetic information from messenger RNA to proteins. These proteins play critical, non-canonical functions in a multitude of cellular processes. Multiple viruses are known to hijack the functions of aaRSs for proviral outcomes, while cells modify antiviral responses through non-canonical functions of certain synthetases. Recent findings have revealed that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the etiological agent of coronaviral disease 19 (COVID-19), utilizes canonical and non-canonical functions of aaRSs, establishing a complex interplay of viral proteins, cellular factors and host aaRSs. In a striking example, an unconventional multi-aaRS complex consisting of glutamyl-prolyl-, lysyl-, arginyl- and methionyl-tRNA synthetases interact with a previously unknown RNA-element in the 3'-end of SARS-CoV-2 genomic and subgenomic RNAs. This review aims to highlight the aaRS-SARS-CoV-2 interactions identified to date, with possible implications for the biology of host aaRSs in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Sentiment Analysis toward the COVID-19 Vaccine in the Main Latin American Media on Twitter: The Cases of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru

This article analyzes the media coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine by major media outlets in five Latin American countries: Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. For this purpose, the XLM-roBERTa model was applied and the sentiments of all tweets published between January 2020 and June 2023 (n = 24,243) by the five outlets with the greatest online reach in each country were analyzed. The results show that the sentiment in the overall media and in each nation studied was mostly negative, and only at the beginning of the pandemic was there some positivity. In recent months, negative sentiment has increased twelvefold over positive sentiment, and has also garnered many more interactions than positive sentiment. The differences by platform and country are minimal, but there are markedly negative media, some more inclined to neutrality, and only one where positive sentiment predominates. This paper questions the role of journalism in Latin America during a health crisis as serious as that of the coronavirus, in which, instead of the expected neutrality, or even a certain message of hope, the media seem to have been dragged along by the negativity promoted by certain discourses far removed from scientific evidence.