Public sentiment analysis and topic modeling regarding COVID-19 vaccines on the Reddit social media platform: A call to action for strengthening vaccine confidence

TL;DR

This study analyzes Reddit discussions on COVID-19 vaccines, revealing predominantly positive sentiment and focus on side effects, providing insights to improve vaccine confidence through targeted messaging and interventions.

Contribution

It applies sentiment analysis and topic modeling to Reddit data to understand vaccine-related discussions and sentiments over time, highlighting areas for public health messaging.

Findings

More positive than negative sentiment overall

Sentiment remained static over time

Focus on side effects rather than conspiracy theories

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic fueled one of the most rapid vaccine developments in history. However, misinformation spread through online social media often leads to negative vaccine sentiment and hesitancy. To investigate COVID-19 vaccine-related discussion in social media, we conducted a sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling on textual data collected from 13 Reddit communities focusing on the COVID-19 vaccine from Dec 1, 2020, to May 15, 2021. Data were aggregated and analyzed by month to detect changes in any sentiment and latent topics. ty analysis suggested these communities expressed more positive sentiment than negative regarding the vaccine-related discussions and has remained static over time. Topic modeling revealed community members mainly focused on side effects rather than outlandish conspiracy theories. Covid-19 vaccine-related content from 13 subreddits show that the sentiments expressed in these communities are overall more positive than negative and have not meaningfully changed since December 2020. Keywords indicating vaccine hesitancy were detected throughout the LDA topic modeling. Public sentiment and topic modeling analysis regarding vaccines could facilitate the implementation of appropriate messaging, digital interventions, and new policies to promote vaccine confidence.