#DoctorsSpeakUp: Lessons learned from a pro-vaccine Twitter event.

Background: In response to growing anti-vaccine activism on social media, the #DoctorsSpeakUp event was designed to promote pro-vaccine advocacy. This study aimed to analyze Twitter content related to the event to determine (1) characteristics of the Twitter users who authored these tweets, (2) the proportion of tweets expressing pro-vaccine compared to anti-vaccine sentiment, and (3) the content of these tweets.
Methods: Data were collected using Twitter's Filtered Streams Interface, and included all publicly available tweets with the "#DoctorsSpeakUp" hashtag on March 5, 2020, the day of the event. Two independent coders assessed a 5% subsample of original tweets (n = 966) using a thematic content analysis approach. Cohen's κ ranged 0.71-1.00 for all categories. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to examine associations between tweet sentiment, type of account, and tweet content (personal narrative and/or statement about research or science). Accounts were analyzed for likelihood of being a bot (i.e. automated account) using Botometer.
Results: Of 847 (87.7%) relevant tweets, 244 (28.8%) were authored by a Twitter user that identified as a parent and 68 (8.0%) by a user that identified as a health professional. With regard to sentiment, 167 (19.7%) were coded as pro-vaccine and 668 (78.9%) were coded as anti-vaccine. Tweet sentiment was significantly associated with type of account (p < 0.001) and tweet content (p = 0.001). Of the 575 unique users in our dataset, 31 (5.4%) were classified as bots using Botometer.
Conclusions: Our results suggest a highly coordinated response of devoted anti-vaccine antagonists in response to the #DoctorsSpeakUp event. These findings can be used to help vaccine advocates leverage social media more effectively to promote vaccines. Specifically, it would be valuable to ensure that pro-vaccine messages consider hashtag use and pre-develop messages that can be launched and promoted by pro-vaccine advocates.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Todd Wolynn is co-founder of “Shots Heard Round the World” and was involved in the promotion of the #DoctorsSpeakUp event.Todd Wolynn has received funding from Merck Corporation and Sanofi Pasteur Inc. for conference travel, lodging, and consulting, but not during the time this study was conducted.
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