Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Technology Management, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
Faculty of Digital Technologies in Medicine, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
J Med Internet Res. 2021 Mar 16;23(3):e25977. doi: 10.2196/25977.
Vaccines are one of the most important achievements of modern medicine. However, their acceptance is only partial, with vaccine hesitancy and refusal representing a major health threat. Influenza vaccines have low compliance since repeated, annual vaccination is required. Influenza vaccines stimulate discussions both in the real world and online. Social media is currently a significant source of health and medical information. Elucidating the association between social media engagement and influenza vaccination is important and may be applicable to other vaccines, including ones against COVID-19.
The goal of this study is to characterize profiles of social media engagement regarding the influenza vaccine and their association with knowledge and compliance in order to support improvement of future web-associated vaccination campaigns.
A weblink to an online survey in Hebrew was disseminated over social media and messaging platforms. The survey answers were collected during April 2020. Anonymous and volunteer participants aged 21 years and over answered 30 questions related to sociodemographics; social media usage; influenza- and vaccine-related knowledge and behavior; health-related information searching, its reliability, and its influence; and COVID-19-related information searching. A univariate descriptive data analysis was performed, followed by multivariate analysis via building a decision tree to define the most important attributes associated with vaccination compliance.
A total of 213 subjects responded to the survey, of whom 207 were included in the analysis; the majority of the respondents were female, were aged 21 to 40 years, had 1 to 2 children, lived in central Israel, were secular Israeli natives, had higher education, and had a salary close to the national average. Most respondents (128/207, 61.8%) were not vaccinated against influenza in 2019 and used social media. Participants that used social media were younger, secular, and living in high-density agglomerations and had lower influenza vaccination rates. The perceived influence and reliability of the information on social media about COVID-19 were generally similar to those perceptions about influenza.
Using social media is negatively linked to compliance with seasonal influenza vaccination in this study. A high proportion of noncompliant individuals can lead to increased consumption of health care services and can, therefore, overload these health services. This is particularly crucial with a concomitant outbreak, such as COVID-19. Health care professionals should use improved and targeted health communication campaigns with the aid of experts in social media. Targeted communication, based on sociodemographic factors and personalized social media usage, might increase influenza vaccination rates and compliance with other vaccines as well.
疫苗是现代医学的重要成就之一。然而，疫苗的接种率并不高，疫苗犹豫和拒绝是主要的健康威胁。由于需要每年重复接种，流感疫苗的接种率较低。流感疫苗在现实世界和网络上都引发了讨论。社交媒体是目前健康和医疗信息的重要来源。阐明社交媒体参与度与流感疫苗接种之间的关系非常重要，并且可能适用于包括 COVID-19 疫苗在内的其他疫苗。
本研究旨在描述与流感疫苗相关的社交媒体参与度特征，并分析其与知识和接种率之间的关联，以支持未来与网络相关的疫苗接种活动的改进。
通过社交媒体和消息平台发布了一个希伯来语在线调查的链接。在 2020 年 4 月期间收集了匿名和自愿参与调查的 21 岁及以上参与者的调查答案。回答了 30 个与社会人口统计学、社交媒体使用、流感和疫苗相关知识和行为、健康相关信息搜索及其可靠性和影响以及 COVID-19 相关信息搜索等问题。进行了单变量描述性数据分析，然后通过构建决策树来定义与接种率相关的最重要属性，进行多变量分析。
共有 213 名参与者对调查做出了回应，其中 207 名被纳入分析；大多数受访者为女性，年龄在 21 至 40 岁之间，有 1 至 2 个孩子，居住在以色列中部，是世俗的以色列本地人，受过高等教育，收入接近全国平均水平。大多数受访者（128/207，61.8%）在 2019 年没有接种流感疫苗，并且使用了社交媒体。使用社交媒体的参与者更年轻、更世俗，居住在人口密度较高的聚居区，流感疫苗接种率较低。关于 COVID-19 的社交媒体信息的感知影响和可靠性与关于流感的信息的感知影响和可靠性大致相同。
在这项研究中，使用社交媒体与季节性流感疫苗接种的依从性呈负相关。大量不遵守规定的人可能会增加对医疗服务的需求，从而使这些医疗服务不堪重负。在 COVID-19 等同时爆发的情况下，这一点尤其重要。医疗保健专业人员应该在社交媒体专家的帮助下，利用改进和有针对性的健康传播活动。基于社会人口统计学因素和个性化社交媒体使用的针对性沟通，可能会提高流感疫苗接种率和其他疫苗的接种率。
