Jameel Reeshma, Greenfield Sheila, Lavis Anna
College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Department of Applied Health Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Jan 7;25(1):61. doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-21125-0.
Following UK approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on 2/12/20 and 30/12/20 respectively, discussions about them emerged on the social media platform Twitter, (now 'X'). Previous research has shown that Twitter/ X is used by the UK public to engage with public health announcements and that social media influences public opinions of vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, globally. This study explored discussions on Twitter posted in response to the UK government's posts introducing the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. The aim was to investigate vaccine hesitant views, and thereby identify barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the UK.
Online ethnography was used to collect responses ('tweet replies') to 14 Twitter posts published by officials or departments of the UK government on the dates the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines received approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (2/12/20 and 30/12/20, respectively). 16,508 responses were collected and those expressing vaccine hesitancy were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Three themes that underpinned Twitter posters' vaccine hesitancy were identified: (1) Concerns about vaccine development and safety, (2) Information, misinformation and disinformation, (3) Distrust: Politics and 'Big Pharma'. From these themes, eight barriers and eight facilitators to UK COVID-19 vaccine uptake were identified.
This paper highlights key obstacles to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in the UK based on views from Twitter and contributes to the emerging literature on the relationship between social media and the public response to COVID-19 vaccines. In so doing, this analysis offers insights that are useful for the development of vaccine communication strategies more broadly, both in and beyond future pandemics, to ensure that public concerns are addressed, and misinformation and disinformation are appropriately countered.
辉瑞 - 生物科技公司疫苗和牛津 - 阿斯利康疫苗分别于2020年12月2日和12月30日在英国获批后，社交媒体平台推特（现称“X”）上出现了关于它们的讨论。此前的研究表明，推特/X被英国公众用于参与公共卫生公告，并且社交媒体在全球范围内影响公众对疫苗（包括新冠疫苗）的看法。本研究探讨了推特上针对英国政府发布的介绍辉瑞 - 生物科技公司疫苗和牛津 - 阿斯利康疫苗的推文的讨论。目的是调查对疫苗持犹豫态度的观点，从而确定英国新冠疫苗接种的障碍和促进因素。
采用在线人种志方法收集对英国政府官员或部门在辉瑞 - 生物科技公司疫苗和牛津 - 阿斯利康疫苗分别获得药品和医疗产品监管局批准的日期（分别为2020年12月2日和12月30日）发布的14条推特推文的回复（“推文回复”）。共收集到16508条回复，并对表达疫苗犹豫态度的回复进行了反思性主题分析。
确定了支撑推特发帖者疫苗犹豫态度的三个主题：（1）对疫苗研发和安全性的担忧，（2）信息、错误信息和虚假信息，（3）不信任：政治和“大型制药公司”。从这些主题中，确定了英国新冠疫苗接种的八个障碍和八个促进因素。
本文基于推特上的观点突出了英国新冠疫苗接受度的关键障碍，并为社交媒体与公众对新冠疫苗反应之间关系的新兴文献做出了贡献。通过这样做，该分析提供了见解，这些见解对于更广泛地制定疫苗沟通策略非常有用，无论是在未来大流行期间还是之后，以确保公众的担忧得到解决，错误信息和虚假信息得到适当应对。
