Health Communication through Chinese Media on E-Cigarette: A Topic Modeling Approach

Associations between social media engagement and young adults' subsequent onset of ENDS dependence symptoms one year later

BACKGROUND

Young adults are more vulnerable than older adults to engagement with online tobacco marketing and to the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products. Our study examined the longitudinal associations between engagement with pro- and anti-tobacco information on social media (SM) and young adults' subsequent onset of symptoms of dependence on ENDS products one year later, which remain unclear.

METHODS

Participants were college students in the Marketing and Promotions Across Colleges in Texas study. We analyzed data collected in spring 2018 (wave 8, baseline) and spring 2019 (wave 9), which involves 1,764 college students (Mean age = 24.48, 34.8% White) who reported having ever used any ENDS products but no ENDS dependence symptoms at baseline. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between pro- and anti-engagement with tobacco information at baseline and onset of ENDS dependence symptoms at one-year follow-up, controlling for baseline sociodemographic characteristics and tobacco smoking status. We also examined participant sex and depressive symptoms as moderators of the aforementioned associations.

RESULTS

Engagement with both pro- (Odds Ratio = 1.73, p < 0.05) and anti- (Odds Ratio = 1.36, p < 0.05) tobacco information at baseline predicted the subsequent onset of symptoms of dependence on ENDS products one year later. The association between pro-engagement and subsequent onset of ENDS dependence symptoms was stronger among females than males (Exp(β) = 3.21, p < 0.05). Depressive symptomology did not moderate any of the associations.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that engaging with tobacco information on SM, regardless of its valence, serves as a risk factor for the development of subsequent dependence symptoms among young adult ever ENDS users. Considering the uncertainty of ENDS products' health effects, regulation of SM is encouraged to reduce young adults' (re)posting thoughts or comments about the advantages of ENDS products.

Media Search Frequency, Source Credibility About e-Cigarette Health Information, and Motivation to Quit EC Among University Students in Chengdu, China

Purpose

E-cigarettes (ECs) are gaining popularity among young people. This study aimed to assess university student vapers' search frequency and source credibility of commonly used media in China, and their association with daily EC users' motivation to quit EC use.

Participants and Methods

This was a cross-sectional study involving an online quantitative survey in six universities in Chengdu, China. Participants answered questions on their EC use patterns, motivation to quit EC, use frequency and source credibility of media use. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to determine the association between media search frequency and source credibility concerning EC health information with the motivation to quit EC.

Results

There were a total of 325 participants (Mean age = 20.43, SD = 1.333). Video platforms and social media were ranked frequently used by the participants and were deemed to be more trustworthy. Perceived trustworthiness of online media was the most influential predictor of motivation to quit EC. Those who reported a higher frequency of accessing video platforms and medical health applications recorded higher motivation to quit EC use. Source credibility of news portals were associated higher motivation to quit EC. The association between higher nicotine dependence and lower motivation to quit EC was attenuated when media source credibility and trustworthiness of online media were added into the fully adjusted regression models.

Conclusion

There is an association between media use frequency and source credibility to search for EC health information and motivation to quit vaping. More studies could be conducted to examine the effects of media use content on perceptions towards vaping and their motivation to quit vaping.

Topic modeling and sentiment analysis of Chinese people’s attitudes toward volunteerism amid the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent need for volunteers to complement overwhelmed public health systems. This study aims to explore Chinese people’s attitudes toward volunteerism amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we identify the latent topics in volunteerism-related microblogs on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter using the topic modeling analysis via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). To further investigate the public sentiment toward the topics generated by LDA, we also conducted sentiment analysis on the sample posts using the open-source natural language processing (NLP) technique from Baidu. Through an in-depth analysis of 91,933 Weibo posts, this study captures 10 topics that are, in turn, distributed into five factors associated with volunteerism in China as motive fulfillment (n = 31,661, 34.44%), fear of COVID-19 (n = 22,597, 24.58%), individual characteristic (n = 17,688, 19.24%), government support (n = 15,482, 16.84%), and community effect (n = 4,505, 4.90%). The results show that motive fulfillment, government support, and community effect are the factors that could enhance positive attitudes toward volunteerism since the topics related to these factors report high proportions of positive emotion. Fear of COVID-19 and individual characteristic are the factors inducing negative sentiment toward volunteerism as the topics related to these factors show relatively high proportions of negative emotion. The provision of tailored strategies based on the factors could potentially enhance Chinese people’s willingness to participate in volunteer activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Exploring public attitudes toward live-streaming fitness in China: A sentiment and content analysis of China's social media Weibo

Objectives

Live-streaming fitness is perceived by the Chinese government as an invaluable means to reduce the prevalence of physical inactivity amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to investigate the public altitudes of the Chinese people toward live-streaming fitness and provide future health communication strategies on the public promotion of live-streaming fitness accordingly.

Methods

This study collected live-streaming fitness-related microblog posts from July 2021 to June 2022 in Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter. We used the BiLSTM-CNN model to carry out the sentiment analysis, and the structured topic modeling (STM) method to conduct content analysis.

Results

This study extracted 114,397 live-streaming fitness-related Weibo posts. Over 80% of the Weibo posts were positive during the period of the study, and over 85% were positive in half of the period. This study finds 8 topics through content analysis, which are fitness during quarantine; cost reduction; online community; celebrity effect; Industry; fitness injuries; live commerce and Zero Covid strategy.

Conclusions

It is discovered that the public attitudes toward live-streaming fitness were largely positive. Topics related to celebrity effect (5-11%), fitness injuries (8-16%), live commerce (5-9%) and Zero Covid strategy (16-26%) showed upward trends in negative views of the Chinese people. Specific health communication strategy suggestions are given to target each of the negative topics.

Exploring the Factors Associated with Mental Health Attitude in China: A Structural Topic Modeling Approach

Mental health attitude has huge impacts on the improvement of mental health. In response to the ongoing damage the COVID-19 pandemic caused to the mental health of the Chinese people, this study aims to explore the factors associated with mental health attitude in China. To this end, we extract the key topics in mental health-related microblogs on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, using the structural topic modeling (STM) approach. An interaction term of sentiment polarity and time is put into the STM model to track the evolution of public sentiment towards the key topics over time. Through an in-depth analysis of 146,625 Weibo posts, this study captures 12 topics that are, in turn, classified into four factors as stigma (n = 54,559, 37.21%), mental health literacy (n = 32,199, 21.96%), public promotion (n = 30,747, 20.97%), and social support (n = 29,120, 19.86%). The results show that stigma is the primary factor inducing negative mental health attitudes in China as none of the topics related to this factor are considered positive. Mental health literacy, public promotion, and social support are the factors that could enhance positive attitudes towards mental health, since most of the topics related to these factors are identified as positive ones. The provision of tailored strategies for each of these factors could potentially improve the mental health attitudes of the Chinese people.