Vaccines are undoubtedly one of the most important weapons in the modern medical arsenal, yet the anti-vax movement stubbornly persists, thus undermining confidence in vaccines among a sizeable portion of the population.

New research from the University of Pennsylvania explores both the spread of anti-vax messages on social media, and how these can be effectively tackled.

The study uses big data and survey responses collected during the 2018-19 flu season.  The analysis reveals a strong association between social media messages and both attitudes towards vaccinations and the likelihood of having them.  Any negative messaging that appears on social media can, however, be overcome if people have conversations with friends and family.

“What we find is that some online discussions appear to have a negative influence on people’s attitudes and vaccine behavior – which makes the people exposed to them less likely to get a flu shot,” the researchers say. “That’s the case if they do not have real-world discussions about vaccination with family and friends. But if they discuss it with others, that effect goes away.”

Covid vaccines

There are obvious implications for any vaccines that emerge to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.  There are already negative messages circulating online about any potential vaccines that are undermining public willingness to engage.

That conversations with family and friends appears to negate any negative online messaging should encourage health officials to promote real-world conversations about the various benefits of vaccines.

“We should be inviting families and communities to have open discussions on these issues,” the researchers explain. “You don’t necessarily have to tell people what to do, but that at least puts the issue on the table.”

Monitoring the conversation

The researchers tracked over 100,000 tweets in total, with machine learning then used to identify 10 topics within the flu and vaccine-related tweets.  These tweets were then geotagged to connect them to each US county.

These tweets were then compared against individual responses to five waves of US survey data during the 2018-19 flu season, which asked people about their attitude towards vaccines and whether they had both had vaccines themselves or conversations about them in real-life.

The researchers caution that while there does appear to be a strong link between the social media topics and the attitudes and behaviors of people towards vaccines, this correlation doesn’t imply causation.  Nonetheless, they believe the results highlight the importance of information to ensure people take the right behaviors, and how crucial it is for public bodies to combat the ‘infodemic’ we’re living through online.