Chinese Social Media Reaction to News About 39 Notifiable Infectious Diseases

Isaac Chun-Hai Fung, Georgia Southern University
Yi Hao, Georgia Southern University
Braydon J. Schaible, Georgia Southern University
Jingxian Cai, Georgia Southern University
Yuchen Ying, University of Georgia
Zion Tsz Ho Tse, University of Georgia
King-Wa Fu, University of Hong Kong

Abstract or Description

Background: Weibo, a Chinese microblogging service similar to Twitter, plays an important role in health communication in China.

Methods: Weibo data had been collected through 2012 and posts that carried keywords on the 39 infectious diseases that are notifiable in mainland China were selected. We manually read and described the Weibo posts on days when these posts peaked in number.

Results: We categorized the Weibo posts into four types, namely reactions to routine health promotion messages or specific health promotion events, reactions to news about disease outbreaks or cases, reactions to movies, books or other media that mention diseases and social interaction of Weibo users that mention diseases in their conversation.

Conclusion: Weibo users’ attention to the diseases was higher during specific health promotion events or disease outbreaks than on regular days. Social interactions that mentioned infectious diseases suggested that social media could potentially be useful tools in health communication.