Kang Yin, Wang Youfa, Zhang Dongsong, Zhou Lina
Department of Information Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, United States.
Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, United States.
Int J Med Inform. 2017 Jul;103:83-88. doi: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2017.04.013. Epub 2017 Apr 19.
This study investigates the public's opinions on a new school meals policy for childhood obesity prevention, discovers aspects concerning those opinions, and identifies possible gender and regional differences in the U.S.
We collected 14,317 relevant tweets from 11,715 users since the national policy enactment on Feb 9, 2010 through Dec 31, 2015. We applied opinion mining techniques to classify tweets into positive, negative, and neutral categories, and conducted content analysis to gain insights into aspects of opinions in terms of target, holder, source, and function.
There were more negative tweets about the school meals policy than positive ones (16.8% vs. 12.9%), in addition to neutral tweets (70.3%). The main targets for negative opinions were campaign and food, and those for positive opinions were policy and health benefits. The opinion holders represent a wide range of policy stakeholders. The first-hand source dominated the opinions. Statement accounted for the function of most opinions. Females (62.5%) were more involved than males (37.5%), and people in the South and the West regions (64.2%) engaged themselves more than people in the Northeast and the Midwest (35.8%) of the U.S.
Negative opinions about the school meals policy consistently outnumbered positive ones. The findings discovered the public's opinions for policy improvement, contributed to the evidence base of health benefits for policy promotion and community collaboration, and revealed interesting gender and regional differences in the opinions. The social media analytics offers significant methodological implications for discovering the public opinions on food policies.
本研究调查公众对一项预防儿童肥胖的新学校膳食政策的看法，找出这些看法涉及的方面，并确定美国可能存在的性别和地区差异。
自2010年2月9日国家政策颁布至2015年12月31日，我们从11,715名用户那里收集了14,317条相关推文。我们应用意见挖掘技术将推文分为正面、负面和中性类别，并进行内容分析，以从目标、持有者、来源和功能方面深入了解意见的各个方面。
除了中性推文（70.3%）外，关于学校膳食政策的负面推文多于正面推文（16.8%对12.9%）。负面意见的主要目标是宣传活动和食物，正面意见的主要目标是政策和健康益处。意见持有者代表了广泛的政策利益相关者。第一手来源主导了这些意见。陈述是大多数意见的功能。女性（62.5%）比男性（37.5%）参与度更高，美国南部和西部地区的人（64.2%）比东北部和中西部地区的人（35.8%）参与度更高。
对学校膳食政策的负面意见一直多于正面意见。这些发现发现了公众对政策改进的意见，为促进政策和社区合作的健康益处的证据基础做出了贡献，并揭示了意见中有趣的性别和地区差异。社交媒体分析为发现公众对食品政策的意见提供了重要的方法学启示。
