Chen Long, Lu Xinyi, Yuan Jianbo, Luo Joyce, Luo Jiebo, Xie Zidian, Li Dongmei
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, United States.
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2020 Jun 22;22(6):e17496. doi: 10.2196/17496.
In recent years, flavored electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have become popular among teenagers and young adults. Discussions about e-cigarettes and e-cigarette use (vaping) experiences are prevalent online, making social media an ideal resource for understanding the health risks associated with e-cigarette flavors from the users' perspective.
This study aimed to investigate the potential associations between electronic cigarette liquid (e-liquid) flavors and the reporting of health symptoms using social media data.
A dataset consisting of 2.8 million e-cigarette-related posts was collected using keyword filtering from Reddit, a social media platform, from January 2013 to April 2019. Temporal analysis for nine major health symptom categories was used to understand the trend of public concerns related to e-cigarettes. Sentiment analysis was conducted to obtain the proportions of positive and negative sentiment scores for all reported health symptom categories. Topic modeling was applied to reveal the topics related to e-cigarettes and health symptoms. Furthermore, generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to quantitatively measure potential associations between e-liquid flavors and the reporting of health symptoms.
Temporal analysis showed that the Respiratory category was consistently the most discussed health symptom category among all categories related to e-cigarettes on Reddit, followed by the Throat category. Sentiment analysis showed higher proportions of positive sentiment scores for all reported health symptom categories, except for the Cancer category. Topic modeling conducted on all health-related posts showed that 17 of the top 100 topics were flavor related. GEE models showed different associations between the reporting of health symptoms and e-liquid flavor categories, for example, lower association of the Beverage flavors with Respiratory compared with other flavors and higher association of the Fruit flavors with Cardiovascular than other flavors.
This study identified different potential associations between e-liquid flavors and the reporting of health symptoms using social media data. The results of this study provide valuable information for further investigation of the health effects associated with different e-liquid flavors.
近年来，调味电子烟在青少年和年轻人中变得流行起来。关于电子烟及电子烟使用体验的讨论在网上很普遍，这使得社交媒体成为从用户角度了解与电子烟口味相关健康风险的理想资源。
本研究旨在利用社交媒体数据调查电子烟液口味与健康症状报告之间的潜在关联。
使用关键词过滤从社交媒体平台Reddit收集了一个由280万个与电子烟相关的帖子组成的数据集，时间跨度为2013年1月至2019年4月。对九个主要健康症状类别进行时间分析，以了解公众对电子烟相关问题的关注趋势。进行情感分析以获取所有报告的健康症状类别的积极和消极情感得分比例。应用主题建模来揭示与电子烟和健康症状相关的主题。此外，使用广义估计方程（GEE）模型来定量测量电子烟液口味与健康症状报告之间的潜在关联。
时间分析表明，在Reddit上与电子烟相关的所有类别中，呼吸系统类别一直是讨论最多的健康症状类别，其次是喉咙类别。情感分析表明，除癌症类别外，所有报告的健康症状类别的积极情感得分比例都较高。对所有与健康相关的帖子进行的主题建模表明，前100个主题中有17个与口味相关。GEE模型显示健康症状报告与电子烟液口味类别之间存在不同的关联，例如，与其他口味相比，饮料口味与呼吸系统的关联较低，而水果口味与心血管系统的关联高于其他口味。
本研究利用社交媒体数据确定了电子烟液口味与健康症状报告之间不同的潜在关联。本研究结果为进一步调查不同电子烟液口味相关的健康影响提供了有价值的信息。
