Researchers scour Twitter to analyze public attitudes about COVID-19 vaccinations

A new study from the University of Illinois Chicago examines key themes and topics from almost three million COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets posted by individuals and explores the trends and variations in public opinions and sentiments about vaccines and vaccination programs. Covering four months of the pandemic, Jan. 1 to April 30, 2021, the researchers used topic modeling to explore the themes and topics underlying the tweets, and used sentiment analysis to compute sentiment scores and examine weekly trends. Their findings can be found in the journal JMIR Infodemiology. -Our study is uniquely positioned and differs from many other similar studies, as we capture and use the tweets made by the general public, excluding those made by news outlets and other organizations,- said the study's lead author Ranganathan Chandrasekaran , professor of information and decision sciences in the College of Business Administration. -We have identified changes in public attitudes towards vaccination, key concerns about vaccination, reasons behind vaccine hesitancy and poor uptake of vaccines by certain groups. Some of the key findings include: The most-tweeted topic about COVID-19 vaccination was related to vaccination policy, specifically, whether vaccines needed to be mandated or optional (13.94%), followed by vaccine hesitancy (12.63%) and post-vaccination symptoms and effects (10.