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White BK, Ishizumi A, Lavery L, Wright A, Foley T, O'Neill R, Rambaud K, Sreenath RS, Salvi C, Takahashi R, D'Agostino M, Nguyen T, Briand S, Purnat TD. Expressions of pandemic fatigue on digital platforms: a thematic analysis of sentiment and narratives for infodemic insights. BMC Public Health 2024; 24:705. [PMID: 38443914 PMCID: PMC10916327 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-17718-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2023] [Accepted: 01/09/2024] [Indexed: 03/07/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The infodemic accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an overwhelming amount of information, including questions, concerns and misinformation. Pandemic fatigue has been identified as a concern from early in the pandemic. With new and ongoing health emergencies in 2022, it is important to understand how pandemic fatigue is being discussed and expressed by users on digital channels. This study aims to explore and report on key narrative themes associated with expressions of pandemic fatigue by users on digital platforms. METHODS This paper describes the collection of publicly available data over a 3-month period from multiple online sources using the Meltwater and CrowdTangle platforms to source data from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Product Reviews, Twitch, blogs & forums. A comprehensive search strategy was developed and tested. A total of 1,484,042 social media posts were identified during the time-period that included the defined search terms for pandemic fatigue. These data were initially sorted by highest levels of engagement and from this dataset, analysts reviewed the identified posts to isolate and remove irrelevant content and identify dominant narratives. A thematic analysis was carried out on these narratives to identify themes related to expression of pandemic fatigue. Two researchers reviewed the data and themes. RESULTS The thematic analysis of narratives identified six main themes relating to expression of pandemic fatigue, and one theme of counter narratives against pandemic fatigue. Data volume increased concurrent with the time of the mpox emergency announcement. Emergent themes showed the different ways users expressed pandemic fatigue and how it was interlaced with issues of trust, preventative measure acceptance and uptake, misinformation, and being overwhelmed with multiple or sustained emergencies. CONCLUSIONS This paper has identified the different ways users express pandemic fatigue on digital channels over a 3-month period. Better understanding the implications of the information environment on user's perceptions, questions, and concerns regarding pandemic and more broadly emergency fatigue is vital in identifying relevant interventions and, in the longer term, strengthening the global architecture for health emergency preparedness, prevention, readiness and resilience, as evidenced in this paper. There are clear pathways for further research, including incorporating additional languages and reviewing these themes over longer time periods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Becky K White
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Atsuyoshi Ishizumi
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | | | | | - Rhys O'Neill
- Africa Infodemic Response Alliance, WHO Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of the Congo
| | - Kimberly Rambaud
- Risk Communication & Community Engagement, Health Emergencies, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Ravi Shankar Sreenath
- Risk Communication & Community Engagement, Health Emergencies, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Cristiana Salvi
- Risk Communication & Community Engagement, Health Emergencies, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Ryoko Takahashi
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Marcelo D'Agostino
- Information Systems for Health, Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Regional Office for the Americas, Washington DC, DC, USA
| | - Tim Nguyen
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Sylvie Briand
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Tina D Purnat
- Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Prevention, Health Emergencies Programme, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
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Rambaud K, van Woerden S, Palumbo L, Salvi C, Smallwood C, Rockenschaub G, Okoliyski M, Marinova L, Fomaidi G, Djalalova M, Faruqui N, Melo Bianco V, Mosquera M, Spasov I, Totskaya Y. Building a Chatbot in a Pandemic. J Med Internet Res 2023; 25:e42960. [PMID: 37074958 PMCID: PMC10566580 DOI: 10.2196/42960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2022] [Revised: 01/30/2023] [Accepted: 03/16/2023] [Indexed: 03/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Easy access to evidence-based information on COVID-19 within an infodemic has been a challenging task. Chatbots have been introduced in times of emergency, when human resources are stretched thin and individuals need a user-centered resource. The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) Europe and Central Asia came together to build a chatbot, HealthBuddy+, to assist country populations in the region to access accurate COVID-19 information in the local languages, adapted to the country context. Working in close collaboration with thematic technical experts, colleagues and counterparts at the country level allowed the project to be tailored to a diverse range of subtopics. To ensure that HealthBuddy+ was relevant and useful in countries across the region, the 2 regional offices worked closely with their counterparts in country offices, which were essential in partnering with national authorities, engaging communities, promoting the tool, and identifying the most relevant communication channels in which to embed HealthBuddy+. Over the past 2 years, the project has expanded from a web-based chatbot in 7 languages to a multistream, multifunction chatbot available in 16 regional languages, and HealthBuddy+ continues to expand and adjust to meet emerging health emergency needs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kimberly Rambaud
- World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Simon van Woerden
- World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Leonardo Palumbo
- World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Cristiana Salvi
- World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Nabiha Faruqui
- United Nations Children's Fund, Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Viviane Melo Bianco
- United Nations Children's Fund, Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Mario Mosquera
- United Nations Children's Fund, Europe and Central Asia Regional Office, Geneva, Switzerland
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White BK, Gombert A, Nguyen T, Yau B, Ishizumi A, Kirchner L, León A, Wilson H, Jaramillo-Gutierrez G, Cerquides J, D'Agostino M, Salvi C, Sreenath RS, Rambaud K, Samhouri D, Briand S, Purnat TD. Using Machine Learning Technology (Early Artificial Intelligence-Supported Response With Social Listening Platform) to Enhance Digital Social Understanding for the COVID-19 Infodemic: Development and Implementation Study. JMIR Infodemiology 2023; 3:e47317. [PMID: 37422854 PMCID: PMC10477919 DOI: 10.2196/47317] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2023] [Revised: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/11/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need for rapid social understanding to inform infodemic management and response. Although social media analysis platforms have traditionally been designed for commercial brands for marketing and sales purposes, they have been underused and adapted for a comprehensive understanding of social dynamics in areas such as public health. Traditional systems have challenges for public health use, and new tools and innovative methods are required. The World Health Organization Early Artificial Intelligence-Supported Response with Social Listening (EARS) platform was developed to overcome some of these challenges. OBJECTIVE This paper describes the development of the EARS platform, including data sourcing, development, and validation of a machine learning categorization approach, as well as the results from the pilot study. METHODS Data for EARS are collected daily from web-based conversations in publicly available sources in 9 languages. Public health and social media experts developed a taxonomy to categorize COVID-19 narratives into 5 relevant main categories and 41 subcategories. We developed a semisupervised machine learning algorithm to categorize social media posts into categories and various filters. To validate the results obtained by the machine learning-based approach, we compared it to a search-filter approach, applying Boolean queries with the same amount of information and measured the recall and precision. Hotelling T2 was used to determine the effect of the classification method on the combined variables. RESULTS The EARS platform was developed, validated, and applied to characterize conversations regarding COVID-19 since December 2020. A total of 215,469,045 social posts were collected for processing from December 2020 to February 2022. The machine learning algorithm outperformed the Boolean search filters method for precision and recall in both English and Spanish languages (P<.001). Demographic and other filters provided useful insights on data, and the gender split of users in the platform was largely consistent with population-level data on social media use. CONCLUSIONS The EARS platform was developed to address the changing needs of public health analysts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The application of public health taxonomy and artificial intelligence technology to a user-friendly social listening platform, accessible directly by analysts, is a significant step in better enabling understanding of global narratives. The platform was designed for scalability; iterations and new countries and languages have been added. This research has shown that a machine learning approach is more accurate than using only keywords and has the benefit of categorizing and understanding large amounts of digital social data during an infodemic. Further technical developments are needed and planned for continuous improvements, to meet the challenges in the generation of infodemic insights from social media for infodemic managers and public health professionals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Becky K White
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | - Tim Nguyen
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Brian Yau
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Atsuyoshi Ishizumi
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | | | | | | | - Jesus Cerquides
- Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Cerdanyola, Spain
| | - Marcelo D'Agostino
- Information Systems for Health, Evidence and Intelligence for Action in Health, Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Regional Office for the Americas, Washington DC, DC, United States
| | - Cristiana Salvi
- Risk Communication and Community Engagement Unit, Health Emergencies Division, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Ravi Shankar Sreenath
- Risk Communication and Community Engagement Unit, Health Emergencies Division, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Kimberly Rambaud
- Risk Communication and Community Engagement Unit, Health Emergencies Division, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Dalia Samhouri
- Country Health Emergency Preparedness and International Health Regulations (2005), World Health Organization Regional Office for Eastern Mediterranean, Cairo, Egypt
| | - Sylvie Briand
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Tina D Purnat
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
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