People's Attitude and Perception of the Pandemic on Twitter: A Case Study of COVID-19 in India

Background Understanding the attitudes and perceptions of the general population is necessary for organizing health promotion initiatives. During outbreaks, social media has a significant impact on creating social perceptions. This study aims to identify and examine the emotions expressed and topics of discussion among Indian citizens related to COVID-19 third wave, from the messages posted on Twitter using text mining techniques. Methods Twitter messages (tweets) were downloaded using Twitter API from June 1, 2021 to July 10, 2021. After pre-processing the downloaded messages, 8933 unique tweets from various individuals were taken into account for the analysis. To identify and extract emotions expressed by the people in the Twitter texts, the text mining and sentiment analysis package "syuzhet" in R software was used. In order to identify the concerns and themes of discussion by the public during the pandemic, topic analysis was done using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) technique. To understand and measure the tweets' reachability in relation to the themes and emotions conveyed, an engagement metrics analysis was also conducted. Results According to the emotional analysis performed on Twitter messages about the COVID-19 third wave, anticipation was exhibited maximum in 4180 tweets, followed by fear in 4070, and trust in 4001 tweets. Results of topic modeling revealed that there were widespread discussions and concerns about preventative measures to deal with the COVID-19 third wave. Engagement metrics verified that the greatest number of individuals liked and retweeted tweets expressing disgust. Maximum people favorited tweets with information on preventive measures for COVID-19, and a large number of individuals re-shared messages comparing various aspects of different COVID-19 waves. Conclusion Data from social media platforms can be used to comprehend public opinions and emotions during pandemics and emergencies. This can assist public health stakeholders in managing pandemic circumstances by planning effective health communication strategies that quickly reach a larger audience. The study's findings will assist stakeholders and public health experts in effectively using social media to communicate information about COVID-19 that combat people's negative emotions and concerns. Future research can use a similar approach to comprehend people's perspectives and concerns during outbreaks and emergency circumstances.

Examining Antecedents of Factual Knowledge and Perceived Familiarity of COVID-19 Contact Tracing App: A Modified Cognitive Mediation Model

This study employs a modified cognitive mediation model to investigate the role of health valuation and fear in shaping media attention, factual knowledge, and perceived familiarity with COVID-19 contact tracing apps. Data were collected from a national survey of 906 Singaporeans, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the results. Findings indicated that both fear of COVID-19 and health valuation were positively associated with newspapers, television, and social media attention, with health valuation demonstrating a stronger association with each media type. This suggests that health valuation, as an intrinsic motivation, is more critical in information-seeking behavior related to emerging health technologies. However, media attention on all platforms did not correlate with factual knowledge of COVID-19 contact tracing apps, whereas attention to social media was positively associated with perceived familiarity with these apps. This result highlights the potential influence of social media in shaping public perceptions, warranting further investigation into the quality and accuracy of the information disseminated. News elaboration was found to have a positive association with both factual knowledge and perceived familiarity with COVID-19 contact tracing apps. This underscores the need for effective communication strategies to promote accurate understanding of health technologies and emphasizes the role of individual motivations in shaping media consumption and information processing.

Public Engagement as the Fifth Dimension of Outbreak Communication: Public's Perceptions of Public Health Communication during COVID-19 in India

Public health/risk communication is the foremost responsibility of a government during a pandemic. Risk communication aims to educate people, enhance their risk perceptions to help them engage and understand the benefits of compliance with recommendations. The existing legal enforcement of recommendations in India is criticized for failing to influence the public's compliance. While existing research provides conceptual and empirical support in explaining compliance during COVID-19, we note a lack of studies that might bring out country-specific areas of improvement. We argue that value-aligned risk communication is more likely to influence the public's behavioral intentions to adopt the government's recommendations. We employed a triangulation mixed-method study to link risk communication attributes to the public's end goals and values. We triangulate these findings using the COVID score survey. We found that timeliness and transparency constitute risk communication's functional component, and empathy and trust constitute risk communication's emotional component. We found a difference in the preference of functional and emotional components among the public and health partners. Irrespective of this divide in perception, the study found that both groups unanimously noted engagement as the crucial aspect for empowerment and involvement to aid the public in teaming with the government to combat the pandemic effectively.

Determining the nutritional immunity information-seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in India: a Google Trends data analysis

Objective:

During COVID-19, the Internet was a prime source for getting relevant updates on guidelines and desirable information. The objective of the present study was to determine the nutritional immunity information-seeking behaviour during COVID-19 in India.

Design:

Google Trends (GTs) data on relevant COVID-19 and nutritional topics were systematically selected and retrieved. Data on newly reported COVID-19 cases were also examined on a daily basis. The cross-correlation method was used to determine the correlation coefficient between the selected terms and daily new COVID-19 cases, and the joinpoint regression models were utilised to measure monthly percent change (MPC) in relative search volumes (RSV).

Setting:

Online.

Participants:

People using Google search during the period 1 January 2020–31 August 2020 in India.

Results:

The date of peak searches can be attributed to the COVID-19 guidelines announcement dates. All the nutritional terms showed a significant increase in average monthly percentage change. The higher than the average daily rise in COVID-19 cases leads to a higher than average increase in RSV of nutritional terms with the greatest association after 14–27 d. The highest mean relative search volume for nutritional terms was from Southern India (49·34 ± 7·43), and the lowest was from Western India (31·10 ± 6·30).

Conclusion:

There was a significant rise in the Google searches of nutritional immunity topics during COVID-19 in India. The local/regional terms can be considered for better outreach of public health guidelines or recommendations. Further automation of Google Trends using programming languages can help in real-time monitoring and planning various health/nutritional events.

The Preparedness of Primary Health Care Network in terms of Emergency Risk Communication: A Study in Iran

OBJECTIVE

Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) is known as 1 of the important components of an effective response to public health emergencies. In this study, we aimed to investigate the preparedness of the Primary Health Care Network (PHCN) of Iran in terms of the ERC.

METHODS

This study was conducted in 136 Primary Health Care Facilities (PHCFs) affilated to Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, Iran. Data in terms of ERC were collected using a checklist developed by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

RESULTS

The findings of the study revealed that 65.9% of the PHCFs had low preparedness in terms of the ERC, 33.3% had a moderate level and 0.8% had high preparedness in this regard. There was a significant difference between the level of ERC and the history of crisis in the past year, PHCF type, and the education level of the responsible employees in the crisis unit in the PHCF.

CONCLUSIONS

The results showed that the PHCFs studied need to increase their capacity and capability in the field of ERC. Further efforts to provide ERC components may increase the preparedness of PHCN in Iran in terms of the ERC.