Investigating COVID-19 vaccine communication and misinformation on TikTok: a cross sectional study (Preprint) Journal Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for reliable information, especially, around vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy is a growing concern and a great threat to broader public health. The prevalence of social media within our daily lives emphasizes the importance of accurately analyzing how health information is being disseminated to the public. TikTok is of particular interest as it is an emerging social media platform that young adults may be increasingly using to access health information.

To examine and describe the content within the top 100 TikToks trending with the hashtag #covidvaccine.

The top 250 most viewed TikToks with the hashtag of #covidvaccine were batch downloaded on 01/07/2021 with their respective metadata. Each TikTok was subsequently viewed and encoded by two independent reviewers. Coding continued until 100 TikToks could be included based on language and content. Descriptive features were recorded including health care professional (HCP) status of creator, verification of health care provider status, genre and myths addressed. Primary inclusion criteria were any TikToks in English with discussion of a covid vaccine.

Of the 102 videos included, the median number of plays was 1700000, with median shares of 9224 and followers 62200. Upon analysis, 14.7% of TikToks included HCPs (n=15) of which 80.0% (n=12) could be verified via social media or a google search. 100% of HCP TikToks supported vaccine use, and overall 81% of all TikToks (created by either a layperson or HCP) supported vaccine use.

As the pandemic continues, vaccine hesitancy poses a threat to lifting restrictions and discovering reasons for this hesitancy is important to public health measures. This study summarizes the discourse around the vaccine use on TikTok. Importantly it opens up a frank discussion about the necessity to incorporate new social media platforms into medical education so we might ensure our trainees are ready to engage with patients where they receive information.

N/A (not a clinical trial)