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Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study

BACKGROUND: With the increasing popularity of snus, it is essential to understand the public perception of this oral tobacco product. Twitter—a popular social media platform that is being used to share personal experiences and opinions—provides an ideal data source for studying the public perception...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chen, Jiarui, Xue, Siyu, Xie, Zidian, Li, Dongmei
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9468913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36036970
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38174
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author Chen, Jiarui
Xue, Siyu
Xie, Zidian
Li, Dongmei
author_facet Chen, Jiarui
Xue, Siyu
Xie, Zidian
Li, Dongmei
author_sort Chen, Jiarui
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: With the increasing popularity of snus, it is essential to understand the public perception of this oral tobacco product. Twitter—a popular social media platform that is being used to share personal experiences and opinions—provides an ideal data source for studying the public perception of snus. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine public perceptions and discussions of snus on Twitter. METHODS: Twitter posts (tweets) about snus were collected through the Twitter streaming application programming interface from March 11, 2021, to February 26, 2022. A temporal analysis was conducted to examine the change in number of snus-related tweets over time. A sentiment analysis was conducted to examine the sentiments of snus-related tweets. Topic modeling was applied to tweets to determine popular topics. Finally, a keyword search and hand-coding were used to understand the health symptoms mentioned in snus-related tweets. RESULTS: The sentiment analysis showed that the proportion of snus-related tweets with a positive sentiment was significantly higher than the proportion of negative sentiment tweets (4341/11,631, 37.32% vs 3094/11,631, 26.60%; P<.001). The topic modeling analysis revealed that positive tweets focused on snus’s harm reduction and snus use being an alternative to smoking, while negative tweets focused on health concerns related to snus. Mouth and respiratory symptoms were the most mentioned health symptoms in snus-related tweets. CONCLUSIONS: This study examined the public perception of snus and popular snus-related topics discussed on Twitter, thus providing a guide for policy makers with regard to the future formulation and adjustment of tobacco regulation policies.
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spelling pubmed-94689132022-09-14 Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study Chen, Jiarui Xue, Siyu Xie, Zidian Li, Dongmei JMIR Med Inform Original Paper BACKGROUND: With the increasing popularity of snus, it is essential to understand the public perception of this oral tobacco product. Twitter—a popular social media platform that is being used to share personal experiences and opinions—provides an ideal data source for studying the public perception of snus. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine public perceptions and discussions of snus on Twitter. METHODS: Twitter posts (tweets) about snus were collected through the Twitter streaming application programming interface from March 11, 2021, to February 26, 2022. A temporal analysis was conducted to examine the change in number of snus-related tweets over time. A sentiment analysis was conducted to examine the sentiments of snus-related tweets. Topic modeling was applied to tweets to determine popular topics. Finally, a keyword search and hand-coding were used to understand the health symptoms mentioned in snus-related tweets. RESULTS: The sentiment analysis showed that the proportion of snus-related tweets with a positive sentiment was significantly higher than the proportion of negative sentiment tweets (4341/11,631, 37.32% vs 3094/11,631, 26.60%; P<.001). The topic modeling analysis revealed that positive tweets focused on snus’s harm reduction and snus use being an alternative to smoking, while negative tweets focused on health concerns related to snus. Mouth and respiratory symptoms were the most mentioned health symptoms in snus-related tweets. CONCLUSIONS: This study examined the public perception of snus and popular snus-related topics discussed on Twitter, thus providing a guide for policy makers with regard to the future formulation and adjustment of tobacco regulation policies. JMIR Publications 2022-08-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9468913/ /pubmed/36036970 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38174 Text en ©Jiarui Chen, Siyu Xue, Zidian Xie, Dongmei Li. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (https://medinform.jmir.org), 29.08.2022. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Medical Informatics, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://medinform.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Chen, Jiarui
Xue, Siyu
Xie, Zidian
Li, Dongmei
Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title_full Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title_fullStr Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title_full_unstemmed Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title_short Perceptions and Discussions of Snus on Twitter: Observational Study
title_sort perceptions and discussions of snus on twitter: observational study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9468913/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36036970
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/38174
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