Explore public concerns about environmental protection on Sina Weibo: evidence from text mining

The increasingly serious problem of ecological environmental pollution warns the importance of human environmental protection behavior. However, public attention to environmental protection plays an important role in solving environmental problems. Therefore, in order to explore the environmental concerns of Chinese residents, the trends in time and space, the relationship between online retweets, and the extraction of environmental concerns, this study analyzed the data of Sina Weibo users and their comments on related posts. At the same time, we used the text mining analysis method to analyze the social media text data, and the results are as follows. In that analysis of concern about environmental protection, women show a stronger attitude and willingness to protect the environment than men, and the public in economically developed areas is more concerned. In order to further investigate the public's environmental concerns, this study also utilized the PageRank algorithm to further study the forwarding relationships between users. The study found that celebrities and some good media organizations can attract environmental attention. Finally, we use pyLDAvis technology to visualize and analyze popular environmental themes and propose reasonable countermeasures and suggestions to enhance public environmental awareness based on the research results.

The effect of air pollution on Chinese green bond market: The mediation role of public concern

Green bonds are becoming increasingly important in sustainable investments since their environmental protection attributes allow them to benefit from environmental degradation. However, the mechanism of environmental degradation on green bonds has not yet been studied. This study proposes a mediation model to analyze air pollution's influence on green bonds. Theoretically, air pollution leads to increased public concern through public environmental awareness and perceptions of physical health risks. Enhanced public concern drives investors' green preference and environmental responsibility, thus expanding green bond demand, in which public concern plays an important mediation role. To verify the mediating effect, causal stepwise regression and bootstrap methods are used. The empirical results confirm this theoretical mechanism. Air pollution is significantly positively related to public concern. Public concern is positively linked with green bond investment willingness, resulting in increased volatility. The total positive effect of air pollution on green bonds is partly absorbed by the mediating effect of public concern that is significantly positive and reaches 30.21% of the total effect. In addition, major crisis events (e.g., COVID-19) may hinder the positive mediation process by generating a negative trend and distracting the public. This means that the government could propose appropriate measures to minimize the negative aspects in order to promote green finance. The mediation model is also useful for investors wishing to increase green assets in their portfolios and provides an incentive for businesses to promote green finance.

Vaccine events raising public concern and associated immunization program policy and practice changes, China, 2005-2021

INTRODUCTION

Several vaccine events causing public concern have occurred in China that were investigated and responded to by the central government. We describe causes, influences, and policy or practice changes associated with vaccine events that occurred between 2005 and 2021. We make recommendations to foster resilience in China's Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) system and vaccination enterprises and to sustain vaccine and program confidence.

METHODS

Our study included all vaccine events since 2005 that were investigated and responded to by the central government of China. We verified mainstream and social media visibility of the events through Internet search. We extracted event times, causes, investigation processes, results, actions, and policy or practice regulation changes from official reports of government meetings and from official websites with media briefings.

RESULTS

Seven vaccine events were identified, each of which caused more than 100,000 mainstream or social media reports nationally or nationally and internationally. The events ranged in magnitude from 145 children receiving out-of-date oral poliovirus vaccine to a measles supplementary immunization activity involving 103 million children. Few, if any, children were directly harmed by vaccines in the events. Government responded to each event with program or policy changes, and in one case, with legislation. Responses affected the conduct of campaigns and supplementary immunization activities, use of schools as vaccination venues, financial incentives for vaccinating with non-program vaccines, vaccine procurement and distribution, and program policy making. The most fundamental response was enacting the country's first vaccine law, the 2019 Vaccine Administration Law, which guides virtually all aspects of vaccination work, from vaccine development through regulation, program implementation, and safety and impact monitoring.

CONCLUSIONS

All seven events generated substantial national and international mainstream and social media criticism and discussion, most commonly expressed through concerns of vaccine safety or vaccine effectiveness. Most had temporally associated temporary declines in vaccine confidence and coverage, jeopardizing decades of vaccination effort. The central government responded to each event by attempting to address root causes. Faithful implementation of the Vaccine Administration Law is fundamental to program strengthening and sustaining confidence of families, stakeholders, and government in vaccines and immunization in China.

Does public concern over haze pollution matter? Evidence from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

Chinese residents are becoming more and more concerned about the living environment especially under the situation of environmental degradation caused by the unbalanced and inadequate economic development. The widespread of internet use provide a new way for public to express the dissatisfaction on environmental pollution. Although the public is the main body of society, the public concern over environmental issues are rarely studied. In this paper, the impact of public concern over haze on haze pollution is quantitatively examined by the utilization of econometric model. Specifically, the Baidu search index (BSI) is utilized as indicators for public concern. Using the panel data consisting of 13 cities in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from the period from January 2014 to December 2019, estimation results showed a significant improvement effect of public concern on haze pollution. In general, the public concern can improve the air quality in a short turn. However, this improvement effect varies with different economic development levels. These findings can help policy makers to better understand the role of public in social governance and improve the air quality in China with the inclusion of public participation.

The public perception of food and non-food related risks of infection and trust in the risk communication during COVID-19 crisis: A study on selected countries from the Arab region

The coronavirus pandemic caused a state of panic worldwide. Mixed messages were given about its risk and how to contain it, when trust in authorities and reliable scientific information are essential to reduce unnecessary scares and inappropriate risk perceptions. We know little about public concerns and opinions in health authorities in the Arab world. Thus, an attempt was made to generate such information through a web-based survey. A total of 1074 subjects from Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia were recruited to explore their perception of food and non-food risks of infection and the influence of the source of information, trust, and attitudes towards the local authorities' communication of risk. Seventy percent of the respondents were concerned that COVID-19 may be transmitted through food. The perception of risk from touching contaminated surfaces and food packaging and being exposed to infected people during food shopping was even higher. For only less than half of the respondents, the information from local authorities was considered trustworthy and the associated risk communication and response to false rumors were timely, effective, and clear. But the satisfaction level among the Jordanians was remarkably stronger than for the Lebanese and Tunisian respondents. The demographic factors, trust in information, and attitudes towards authorities' performance in risk communication did not influence risk perceptions. Respondents’ knowledge was limited based on their chief sources of information, such as social media, local news media broadcasts, and announcements by the World Health Organization. Our conclusion is that unnecessary fear increases among the public when risks that impact heath are unknown. More research in the Arab region is needed to understand the determinants of risk perceptions considering psychological factors on the risk to health. Unfortunately, it is difficult to restrict or contain misleading information from various forms of social media. We recommend that for reducing fear and building confidence with the public for appropriate action during the pandemic, local authorities should enhance the quality and level of details of the information that they share during such crises.

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The concern over contracting COVID-19 from foods was high in Arab countries.

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The participants perceived the risk of COVID-19 transmission via contaminated surfaces higher than from food consumption.

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Only participants from Jordan showed highly positive attitudes towards received risk communication.

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Social media, local news, and the WHO were the chief source of information on COVID-19.

Environmental odour management by artificial neural network - A review

Unwanted odour emissions are considered air pollutants that may cause detrimental impacts to the environment as well as an indicator of unhealthy air to the affected individuals resulting in annoyance and health related issues. These pollutants are challenging to handle due to their invisibility to the naked eye and can only be felt by the human olfactory stimuli. A strategy to address this issue is by introducing an intelligent processing system to odour monitoring instrument such as artificial neural network to achieve a robust result. In this paper, a review on the application of artificial neural network for the management of environmental odours is presented. The principal factors in developing an optimum artificial neural network were identified as elements, structure and learning algorithms. The management of environmental odour has been distinguished into four aspects such as measurement, characterization, control and treatment and continuous monitoring. For each aspect, the performance of the neural network is critically evaluated emphasizing the strengths and weaknesses. This work aims to address the scarcity of information by addressing the gaps from existing studies in terms of the selection of the most suitable configuration, the benefits and consequences. Adopting this technique could provide a new avenue in the management of environmental odours through the use of a powerful mathematical computing tool for a more efficient and reliable outcome.

Analysis of public concerns about influenza vaccinations by mining a massive online question dataset in Japan

BACKGROUND

Elucidating public concerns regarding vaccinations is important for successful immunization programs. The objective of the present study was to categorize public concerns regarding influenza vaccinations in Japan by analyzing a massive web-based question dataset.

METHODS

The Yahoo! Chiebukuro (Japanese Yahoo! Answers) Dataset, which includes more than 16 million questions collected between April 2004 and April 2009, was used in this study. We sequentially filtered data to obtain questions on influenza vaccinations. Any questions that met our exclusion criteria concerning veterinary vaccines or computer virus vaccines were removed from the analysis. Filtered questions and their answers were manually analyzed for their content by a team of board-certified pediatricians.

RESULTS

After filtering data, we obtained 1950 questions regarding influenza vaccinations. The three most frequently asked questions were regarding the vaccination schedule, safety, and effectiveness. When we analyzed monthly trends in question contents, we noted the emergence of similar questions in the same period every year. Therefore, we classified the time periods of each year into three parts: (1) from April to the commencement of seasonal influenza vaccinations (September), (2) from October until the epidemic period, and (3) the epidemic period. Two interesting results were obtained: concerns regarding effectiveness abruptly increased during the epidemic period, and pregnant or breastfeeding women increasingly asked questions regarding feasibility between October and the epidemic period.

CONCLUSIONS

The questions and concerns collected and analyzed in this study illustrate that the public have questions about the influenza vaccine and also that questions changed with periodical consistency. These results highlight the possible usefulness of providing the public with the latest and correct information to their questions in a timely manner, for example via an official health website.

Critical thinking, nurse education and universities: some thoughts on current issues and implications for nursing practice

When in the latter part of the 20th century nurse 'training' in the UK left the old schools of nursing (based within the health delivery system) and entered universities, the promise was not just a change of focus from training to education but an embracement of 'higher' education. Specifically, nurses were to be exposed to the demands of thinking rather than just doing - and critical thinking at that. However, despite a history of critical perspectives informing nursing theory, that promise may be turning sour. The insidious saturation of the university system in bureaucracy and managerialism has, we argue, undermined critical thinking. A major funding restructuring of higher education in the UK, coinciding with public concern about the state of nursing practice, is undermining further the viability of critical thinking in nursing and potentially the acceptability of university education for nurses. Nevertheless, while critical thinking in universities has decayed, there is no obvious educational alternative that can provide this core attribute, one that is even more necessary to understand health and promote competent nursing practice in an increasingly complex and globalising world. We propose that nurse academics and their colleagues from many other academic and professional disciplines engage in collegiate 'moral action' to re-establish critical thinking in UK universities.