Exploring public sentiment and vaccination uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in England: a spatiotemporal and sociodemographic analysis of Twitter data

How to address vaccine hesitancy? Lessons from National Hepatitis B Immunization Program in China

China, with the severe burden of hepatitis B, plays a significant role in the global efforts towards eliminating hepatitis B disease by 2030. Vaccination is recognized as the most effective measure to prevent infectious diseases. However, vaccine hesitancy remains a significant barrier to achieving herd immunity across diverse populations. To address this issue, the health ministries and public health authorities in China have implemented various measures to encourage hepatitis B vaccination. China's National Hepatitis B Immunization Program, initiated in 1985, has been successful in controlling this vaccine-preventable disease. Given the challenges in eliminating hepatitis B, strengthening the National Hepatitis Immunization Program in China is of utmost importance. Through an analysis of policy documents, reports, and scientific papers, the history of the program was summarized, and effective approaches to address vaccine hesitancy were identified. This will help achieve universal health coverage of vaccines and effectively work towards meeting the goals set for 2030.

Deep Learning Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Confidence Expressed on Twitter in 6 High-Income Countries: Longitudinal Observational Study

BACKGROUND

An ongoing monitoring of national and subnational trajectory of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy could offer support in designing tailored policies on improving vaccine uptake.

OBJECTIVE

We aim to track the temporal and spatial distribution of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and confidence expressed on Twitter during the entire pandemic period in major English-speaking countries.

METHODS

We collected 5,257,385 English-language tweets regarding COVID-19 vaccination between January 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, in 6 countries-the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Ireland. Transformer-based deep learning models were developed to classify each tweet as intent to accept or reject COVID-19 vaccination and the belief that COVID-19 vaccine is effective or unsafe. Sociodemographic factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and confidence in the United States were analyzed using bivariate and multivariable linear regressions.

RESULTS

The 6 countries experienced similar evolving trends of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and confidence. On average, the prevalence of intent to accept COVID-19 vaccination decreased from 71.38% of 44,944 tweets in March 2020 to 34.85% of 48,167 tweets in June 2022 with fluctuations. The prevalence of believing COVID-19 vaccines to be unsafe continuously rose by 7.49 times from March 2020 (2.84% of 44,944 tweets) to June 2022 (21.27% of 48,167 tweets). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and confidence varied by country, vaccine manufacturer, and states within a country. The democrat party and higher vaccine confidence were significantly associated with lower vaccine hesitancy across US states.

CONCLUSIONS

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and confidence evolved and were influenced by the development of vaccines and viruses during the pandemic. Large-scale self-generated discourses on social media and deep learning models provide a cost-efficient approach to monitoring routine vaccine hesitancy.