Public perceptions of threats from mosquitoes in the U.S. using online media analytics

ABSTRACT

Mosquito-borne illnesses present a public health threat. This analysis quantifies general online mosquito media, and the Zika virus [ZIKV) specifically, from 7–20-2016 to 10–20-2018 in five U.S. geographies. The ZIKV sub-search comprised a shrinking share of online media about mosquitoes over time. Net sentiment, numerical scoring of search result positivity/negativity bounded between −100 and +100, was assessed. Mean net sentiment for the general mosquitoes search was −51; -55 for ZIKV. The ZIKV search revealed more variation in weekly net sentiment with a standard deviation of 14, compared to 10 for mosquitoes. Seventy-seven percent of the weeks had a net sentiment for the mosquito search that was more positive than the ZIKV search. For the 23% of the time the ZIKV search net sentiment was more positive than the general mosquito search, there were mentions of scientific advances, such as the potential for vaccine development associated with the post. Greater emphasis on public health threats from mosquitoes may be necessary to stimulate public action on mosquito-borne illness control. This analysis serves as an illustration of the potential for online/social media analysis to inform health officials of public interest/focus, and perhaps inform effective communication campaigns to combat public health threats.

KEYWORDS:

• Public health
• Zika virus
• mosquito
• public perceptions
• social media listening

Disclosure statement

The authors declare there is no conflict of interest.

Notes

¹ The general United States and U.S. Virgin Islands search included the continental United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but did not include all U.S. territories, specifically American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.

² https://www.cdc.gov/zika/vector/range.html

³ There currently exists the option of using a GM mosquito to mitigate the spread of ZIKV. The GM mosquito (Aedes Aegypti) which mates to bear terminal offspring could be employed to fight the spread of ZIKV by being released to mate, thereby baring terminal offspring and significantly reducing the mosquito population.

⁴ Domains refer to the specific web address of the material while sources generalize the specific domains to a category. For example, cbs.com would be considered a domain, while all news sources such as cbs.com or abc.com would be categorized within sources as news.