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Investigating the Attitudes of Adolescents and Young Adults Towards JUUL: Computational Study Using Twitter Data.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Increases in electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) use among high school students from 2017 to 2019 appear to be associated with the increasing popularity of the ENDS device JUUL. OBJECTIVE:We employed a content analysis approach in conjunction with natural language processing methods using Twitter data to understand salient themes regarding JUUL use on Twitter, sentiment towards JUUL, and underage JUUL use. METHODS:Between July 2018 and August 2019, 11,556 unique tweets containing a JUUL-related keyword were collected. We manually annotated 4000 tweets for JUUL-related themes of use and sentiment. We used 3 machine learning algorithms to classify positive and negative JUUL sentiments as well as underage JUUL mentions. RESULTS:Of the annotated tweets, 78.80% (3152/4000) contained a specific mention of JUUL. Only 1.43% (45/3152) of tweets mentioned using JUUL as a method of smoking cessation, and only 6.85% (216/3152) of tweets mentioned the potential health effects of JUUL use. Of the machine learning methods used, the random forest classifier was the best performing algorithm among all 3 classification tasks (ie, positive sentiment, negative sentiment, and underage JUUL mentions). CONCLUSIONS:Our findings suggest that a vast majority of Twitter users are not using JUUL to aid in smoking cessation nor do they mention the potential health benefits or detriments of JUUL use. Using machine learning algorithms to identify tweets containing underage JUUL mentions can support the timely surveillance of JUUL habits and opinions, further assisting youth-targeted public health intervention strategies.

SUBMITTER: Benson R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7495253 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Investigating the Attitudes of Adolescents and Young Adults Towards JUUL: Computational Study Using Twitter Data.

Benson Ryzen R Hu Mengke M Chen Annie T AT Nag Subhadeep S Zhu Shu-Hong SH Conway Mike M

JMIR public health and surveillance 20200902 3

<h4>Background</h4>Increases in electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) use among high school students from 2017 to 2019 appear to be associated with the increasing popularity of the ENDS device JUUL.<h4>Objective</h4>We employed a content analysis approach in conjunction with natural language processing methods using Twitter data to understand salient themes regarding JUUL use on Twitter, sentiment towards JUUL, and underage JUUL use.<h4>Methods</h4>Between July 2018 and August 2019, 11,556 ...[more]

PMID: 32876579

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Project description:IntroductionThe public most frequently associates tobacco use solely with pulmonary health risks, despite heart disease being the leading cause of death in smokers. The health perceptions of e-cigarettes, especially cardiovascular health, have not been well studied. We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and health perceptions of tweets related to cardiovascular, pulmonary, and brain health - three organ systems for which tobacco use is a major disease risk factor.MethodsWe examined the cardiovascular, pulmonary, and brain health perceptions of vaping and JUUL on Twitter, followed by a content analysis of tweets pertaining to the cardiovascular risks. A Twitter firehose API scraped about 6.2 million publicly available tweets from 2015-2019 that contained vaping-related terms, and a separate dataset of about 1.9 million tweets that contained the term JUUL. A quantitative content analysis (n=2145) of tweets was subsequently conducted to assess the health perceptions of vaping and JUUL. Two trained coders independently assessed the posts and Twitter profiles to determine age (<18 or ≥18 years), sex, race, sentiment towards JUUL, and vaping-related topics.ResultsThe majority of tweets containing vaping or JUUL-related terms did not also contain cardiovascular, pulmonary, or brain health terms (97.99% and 96.67%, respectively). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that youth (<18 years), females, non-White individuals, mention of a flavor, and mention of cardiovascular health harm words were associated with more positive sentiments towards JUUL. Pearson's chi-squared analyses indicated that youth were more likely to mention a JUUL flavor. Females and youth were more likely to reference cardiovascular terms with humor.ConclusionsThe cardiovascular health risks of vaping are not fully recognized by the public. Vulnerable populations such as youth and females reference JUUL with cardiovascular-related words that downplay the severity of tobacco as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Dataset Information

Investigating the Attitudes of Adolescents and Young Adults Towards JUUL: Computational Study Using Twitter Data.

Publications

Investigating the Attitudes of Adolescents and Young Adults Towards JUUL: Computational Study Using Twitter Data.

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