what the public was saying about the h1n1 vaccine perceptions and issues discussed in on-line comments during the 2009 h1n1 pandemic公众所说的h1n1疫苗的认知和问题讨论了在线评论2009年甲型h1n1流感大流行期间.pdfVIP

What the Public Was Saying about the H1N1 Vaccine: Perceptions and Issues Discussed in On-Line Comments during the 2009 H1N1 Pandemic Natalie Henrich1,2*, Bev Holmes2,3 1 Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences, Providence Health Care, Vancouver, Canada, 2 School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 3 Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Vancouver, Canada Abstract During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, a vaccine was made available to all Canadians. Despite efforts to promote vaccination, the public’s intent to vaccinate remained low. In order to better understand the public’s resistance to getting vaccinated, this study addressed factors that influenced the public’s decision making about uptake. To do this, we used a relatively novel source of qualitative data – comments posted on-line in response to news articles on a particular topic. This study analysed 1,796 comments posted in response to 12 articles dealing with H1N1 vaccine on websites of three major Canadian news sources. Articles were selected based on topic and number of comments. A second objective was to assess the extent to which on-line comments can be used as a reliable data source to capture public attitudes during a health crisis. The following seven themes were mentioned in at least 5% of the comments (% indicates the percentage of comments that included the theme): fear of H1N1 (18.8%); responsibility of media (17.8%); government competency (17.7%); government trustworthiness (10.7%); fear of H1N1 vaccine (8.1%); pharmaceutical companies (7.6%); and personal protective measures (5.8%). It is assumed that the more frequently a theme was mentioned, the more that theme influenced decision making about vaccination. These key themes for the public were often not aligned with the issues and information officia