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It's like smoking a piece of gum: Perceptions of menthol cigarettes among Twitter users
Methods: This project identified 94,627 menthol-relevant tweets over one-year from February 1, 2012 - January 31, 2013 using supervised machine learning procedures. The data were collected from a database of over 47M tobacco-related messages gathered prospectively from the Twitter Firehose, which returns all public tweets and metadata. A random sample of 7,000 menthol-related tweets was coded by a team of 4 coders for prevalence of thematic content (e.g., taste, health concerns), sentiment toward menthol cigarettes, and likely smoking status among Twitter users.
Results: Over 90% of tweets were non-commercial (‘organic’). Preliminary analyses suggest the majority of tweets (60%) discussed smoking behavior, 30% discussed the taste or sensation of menthol (e.g., ‘like gum’), and 16% referenced African-Americans and menthol cigarettes. Only 11% of tweets mentioned cessation and 7% expressed health concerns. Forty-six percent of tweets expressed positive sentiment, while 40% were negative toward menthol cigarettes. The majority of tweets by likely smokers (57%) expressed positive sentiment while 83% of non-smokers and 71% of former smokers indicated negative views.
Conclusions: Examinations of ‘organic’ public opinions toward menthol cigarettes through social media can help to inform the framing of public communication about menthol cigarettes, particularly in light of potential regulation by FDA, states, and localities.
Learning Areas:
Communication and informaticsDiversity and culture
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related public policy
Learning Objectives:
Identify key themes in menthol cigarette-related tweets and sentiment related to menthol cigarettes as expressed by Twitter users
Identify populations associated with menthol cigarette conversation on Twitter
Keyword(s): Tobacco Control, Social Media
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: My doctoral and postdoctoral research has focused on retailer and public perceptions of policies regulating the point of sale, retailer compliance with policies, and policy impact on tobacco health disparities particularly around the regulation of menthol in tobacco products. I have also conducted studies of analysis of social media data through the Health Media Collaboratory. My scientific interests are around communications of policies that have a potential to reduce tobacco use disparities.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.