Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis
Background: Examining public perception of tobacco products is critical for effective tobacco policy making and public education outreach. While the link between traditional tobacco products and lung cancer is well established, it is not known how the public perceives the association between electro...
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Social sciences::Communication Electronic Cigarette Lu, Jiahui Lee, Edmund Wei Jian Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
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Background: Examining public perception of tobacco products is critical for effective tobacco policy making and public education outreach. While the link between traditional tobacco products and lung cancer is well established, it is not known how the public perceives the association between electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and lung cancer. In addition, it is unclear how members of the public interact with official messages during cancer campaigns on tobacco consumption and lung cancer. Objective: In this study, we aimed to analyze e-cigarette and smoking tweets in the context of lung cancer during National Cancer Prevention Month in 2018 and examine how e-cigarette and traditional tobacco product discussions relate to implementation of tobacco control policies across different states in the United States. Methods: We mined tweets that contained the term “lung cancer” on Twitter from February to March 2018. The data set contained 13,946 publicly available tweets that occurred during National Cancer Prevention Month (February 2018), and 10,153 tweets that occurred during March 2018. E-cigarette–related and smoking-related tweets were retrieved, using topic modeling and geospatial analysis. Results: Debates on harmfulness (454/915, 49.7%), personal experiences (316/915, 34.5%), and e-cigarette risks (145/915, 15.8%) were the major themes of e-cigarette tweets related to lung cancer. Policy discussions (2251/3870, 58.1%), smoking risks (843/3870, 21.8%), and personal experiences (776/3870, 20.1%) were the major themes of smoking tweets related to lung cancer. Geospatial analysis showed that discussion on e-cigarette risks was positively correlated with the number of state-level smoke-free policies enacted for e-cigarettes. In particular, the number of indoor and on campus smoke-free policies was related to the number of tweets on e-cigarette risks (smoke-free indoor, r49=0.33, P=.02; smoke-free campus, r49=0.32, P=.02). The total number of e-cigarette policies was also positively related to the number of tweets on e-cigarette risks (r49=0.32, P=.02). In contrast, the number of smoking policies was not significantly associated with any of the smoking themes in the lung cancer discourse (P>.13). Conclusions: Though people recognized the importance of traditional tobacco control policies in reducing lung cancer incidences, their views on e-cigarette risks were divided, and discussions on the importance of e-cigarette policy control were missing from public discourse. Findings suggest the need for health organizations to continuously engage the public in discussions on the potential health risks of e-cigarettes and raise awareness of the insidious lobbying efforts from the tobacco industry. |
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Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information |
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Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Lu, Jiahui Lee, Edmund Wei Jian |
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Article |
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Lu, Jiahui Lee, Edmund Wei Jian |
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Lu, Jiahui |
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Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
title_short |
Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
title_full |
Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
title_fullStr |
Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
title_full_unstemmed |
Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
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examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis |
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2022 |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10356/161317 |
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sg-ntu-dr.10356-1613172023-03-05T15:59:02Z Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis Lu, Jiahui Lee, Edmund Wei Jian Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Social sciences::Communication Electronic Cigarette Twitter Background: Examining public perception of tobacco products is critical for effective tobacco policy making and public education outreach. While the link between traditional tobacco products and lung cancer is well established, it is not known how the public perceives the association between electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) and lung cancer. In addition, it is unclear how members of the public interact with official messages during cancer campaigns on tobacco consumption and lung cancer. Objective: In this study, we aimed to analyze e-cigarette and smoking tweets in the context of lung cancer during National Cancer Prevention Month in 2018 and examine how e-cigarette and traditional tobacco product discussions relate to implementation of tobacco control policies across different states in the United States. Methods: We mined tweets that contained the term “lung cancer” on Twitter from February to March 2018. The data set contained 13,946 publicly available tweets that occurred during National Cancer Prevention Month (February 2018), and 10,153 tweets that occurred during March 2018. E-cigarette–related and smoking-related tweets were retrieved, using topic modeling and geospatial analysis. Results: Debates on harmfulness (454/915, 49.7%), personal experiences (316/915, 34.5%), and e-cigarette risks (145/915, 15.8%) were the major themes of e-cigarette tweets related to lung cancer. Policy discussions (2251/3870, 58.1%), smoking risks (843/3870, 21.8%), and personal experiences (776/3870, 20.1%) were the major themes of smoking tweets related to lung cancer. Geospatial analysis showed that discussion on e-cigarette risks was positively correlated with the number of state-level smoke-free policies enacted for e-cigarettes. In particular, the number of indoor and on campus smoke-free policies was related to the number of tweets on e-cigarette risks (smoke-free indoor, r49=0.33, P=.02; smoke-free campus, r49=0.32, P=.02). The total number of e-cigarette policies was also positively related to the number of tweets on e-cigarette risks (r49=0.32, P=.02). In contrast, the number of smoking policies was not significantly associated with any of the smoking themes in the lung cancer discourse (P>.13). Conclusions: Though people recognized the importance of traditional tobacco control policies in reducing lung cancer incidences, their views on e-cigarette risks were divided, and discussions on the importance of e-cigarette policy control were missing from public discourse. Findings suggest the need for health organizations to continuously engage the public in discussions on the potential health risks of e-cigarettes and raise awareness of the insidious lobbying efforts from the tobacco industry. Nanyang Technological University Published version This project was supported by a research grant from Nanyang Technological University (grant M020060110). 2022-08-24T08:13:50Z 2022-08-24T08:13:50Z 2021 Journal Article Lu, J. & Lee, E. W. J. (2021). Examining twitter discourse on electronic cigarette and tobacco consumption during national cancer prevention month in 2018: topic modeling and geospatial analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(12), e28042-. https://dx.doi.org/10.2196/28042 1438-8871 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/161317 10.2196/28042 34964716 2-s2.0-85122539244 12 23 e28042 en M020060110 Journal of Medical Internet Research © Jiahui Lu, Edmund W J Lee. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 29.12.2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. application/pdf |