Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 14;19(24):16801.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416801.

Sentiment Analysis in Understanding the Potential of Online News in the Public Health Crisis Response

Thiago Marques  1 , Sidemar Cezário  1 , Juciano Lacerda  2   3 , Rafael Pinto  1   3   4 , Lyrene Silva  1 , Orivaldo Santana  3   5 , Anna Giselle Ribeiro  3 , Agnaldo Souza Cruz  3 , Angélica Espinosa Miranda  6   7 , Aedê Cadaxa  6 , Lucía Sanjuán Núñez  8 , Hugo Gonçalo Oliveira  9 , Rifat Atun  10   11 , Ricardo Valentim  3   12
Affiliations

Sentiment Analysis in Understanding the Potential of Online News in the Public Health Crisis Response

Thiago Marques et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

This study analyzes online news disseminated throughout the pre-, during-, and post-intervention periods of the "Syphilis No!" Project, which was developed in Brazil between November 2018 and March 2019. We investigated the influence of sentiment aspects of news to explore their possible relationships with syphilis testing data in response to the syphilis epidemic in Brazil. A dictionary-based technique (VADER) was chosen to perform sentiment analysis considering the Brazilian Portuguese language. Finally, the data collected were used in statistical tests to obtain other indicators, such as correlation and distribution analysis. Of the 627 news items, 198 (31.58%) were classified as a sentiment of security (TP2; stands for the news type 2), whereas 429 (68.42%) were classified as sentiments that instilled vulnerability (TP3; stands for the news type 3). The correlation between the number of syphilis tests and the number of news types TP2 and TP3 was verified from (i) 2015 to 2017 and (ii) 2018 to 2019. For the TP2 type news, in all periods, the p-values were greater than 0.05, thus generating inconclusive results. From 2015 to 2017, there was an ρ = 0.33 correlation between TP3 news and testing data (p-value = 0.04); the years 2018 and 2019 presented a ρ = 0.67 correlation between TP3 news and the number of syphilis tests performed per month, with p-value = 0.0003. In addition, Granger's test was performed between TP3 news and syphilis testing, which resulted in a p-value = 0.002, thus indicating the existence of Granger causality between these time series. By applying natural language processing to sentiment and informational content analysis of public health campaigns, it was found that the most substantial increase in testing was strongly related to attitude-inducing content (TP3).

Keywords: digital solution; online news; public health; public policy; sentiment analysis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sequence of stages carried to the classification of each news in their sentiment polarity, as well as the correlation evaluation and Granger Causality Test.
Figure 2
Figure 2
News month by month between 2015 and 2017 about syphilis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
News month by month between 2018 and 2019 about syphilis.
Figure 4
Figure 4
QQ-Plot of (a) syphilis testing and (b) online news items between 2018 and 2019.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Scatterplot of news and testing data showing the monotonic shape of the relationship between news and testing data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Pan American Health Organization Pan American Health Organization—Syphilis. 2021. [(accessed on 4 November 2021)]. Available online: https://www3.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14....
    1. Peeling R.W., Mabey D., Kamb M.L., Chen X.-S., Radolf J.D., Benzaken A.S. Syphilis. Nat. Rev. Dis. Prim. 2017;3:17073. doi: 10.1038/nrdp.2017.73. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. de Vigilância em Saúde Ministério da Saúde, S. Epidemiological Report—Syphilis 2021. [(accessed on 15 November 2021)];2021 Available online: https://www.gov.br/saude/pt-br/media/pdf/2021/outubro/14-1/boletim_sifil....
    1. Dorfman L., Ervice J., Woodruff K. Voices for Change: A Taxonomy of Public Communications Campaigns and Their Evaluation Challenges. Communications Consortium Media Center, Media Evaluation Project; Washington, DC, USA: 2002.
    1. Robinson M.N., Tansil K.A., Elder R.W., Soler R.E., Labre M.P., Mercer S.L., Eroglu D., Baur C., Lyon-Daniel K., Fridinger F., et al. Mass media health communication campaigns combined with health-related product distribution: A community guide systematic review. Am. J. Prev. Med. 2014;47:360–371. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2014.05.034. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources