Social Media Vaccine Websites: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Moderated Websites

"An expert moderated, interactive vaccine website appears to provide a safe platform from which parents can gather accurate vaccine information, express their concerns, and ask questions."

Numerous studies have shown that the internet is an important source of vaccine information for parents, including those who are hesitant about vaccines. Both the quality of vaccine-related information online and the methods by which that information is presented vary significantly. This article reports the results of a sub-study within the Colorado Vaccine Social Media (VSM) study, a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based VSM intervention to increase childhood vaccine acceptance. (See Related Summaries, below.) The current study compared the content of the interaction on the VSM study website, which is moderated by an expert, to a random sample of interaction extracted from publicly available parenting and vaccine-focused blogs and discussion forums.

Developed for parents of children 24 months of age or younger and enrolled in a United States (US) health care system, the VSM website contained detailed, science-based vaccine information and interactive components that included a blog, discussion board, chat room, and an "ask an expert" question portal. To access the website, participants were required to have a login and password, and all of the interaction was monitored by the research team to ensure privacy, filter abusive language, and prevent bullying.

The observation period for this study was between September 2013 and July 2016. Comments and questions by 542 participating women in 61 threads of interactions from the VSM website were collected and archived. The researchers also selected a sample of 79 interactions extracted from 367 publicly available, US-based parenting and vaccine-focused blogs and discussion forums. Using chi-square or Fisher's exact tests, they compared coded interactions and identified representative quotes to illustrate the quantitative results (shared in the paper).

The researchers found that there were significant differences in the coded interactions for tone, vaccine stance, accuracy of information, and corrected inaccurate information between the public websites and VSM website. The tone on public websites was more antagonistic, while the tone on the VSM website was more informative. On the VSM website, vaccine stance was significantly more positive, information was more accurate, and any inaccurate information was corrected. The VSM website had a more civil tone, with very little participant-to-participant interaction. Of the 79 public websites, 3 were moderated, 64 were not moderated, and moderation status could not be determined on 12 websites. Of the 40 websites that offered a vaccine theme, 11 were classified as anti-vaccine, 19 were pro-vaccine, and 10 were neutral. Parenting websites covered a broad spectrum of information and were not classified as being specifically pro- or anti-vaccine.

In discussing the findings, the researchers observe that the VSM website was used by both hesitant and non-hesitant participants, and the tone of the interaction on the website was civil. This suggests that an expert-moderated social media website can effectively engage parents across a spectrum of vaccine attitudes and beliefs. In conclusion, then, this study would appear to support the notion that large health systems, government agencies, and professional groups can adopt expert-moderated social media platforms to engage parents in respectful conversations and perhaps even deter individuals who wish to initiate arguments and spread misinformation.