Tracking Public Response to HPV Vaccination Policies in China: A Three-Year Social Media Time Series Analysis
Author(s)
Lanyue Zhang, PhD Candidate1, Shouchuang Zhang, PhD Candidate1, Siqi Liu, MS2, Weiyan Jian, Professor1.
1School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China, 2The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China.
1School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China, 2The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China.
OBJECTIVES: Despite the rising burden of cervical cancer, HPV vaccine uptake in China remains low, with only 10.15% of women aged 9-45 receiving a first dose by 2022. To accelerate vaccine coverage, China introduced several national policies, including age expansion approval in August 2022 and the National Action Plan for Cervical Cancer Elimination in January 2023. However, public response to these interventions remains understudied. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of these policy measures by analyzing real-time public discourse on social media.
METHODS: We collected over 2.90 million user-generated HPV-related posts from Sina Weibo, China’s largest social media platform, spanning December 2021 to December 2024. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling combined with manual classification identified 16 key topics across five thematic domains: vaccine accessibility, acceptability, awareness, gender-related discussion, and pandemic-related narratives. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis was applied to examine changes in topic prevalence following policy implementation.
RESULTS: After the National Action Plan was launched, discussions on vaccine shortage decreased by 0.018% per day, and discussions on financial burden decreased by 0.005% per day , indicating a significant decline in attention to vaccine accessibility barriers. In contrast, discussions related to vaccine knowledge increased by 0.017% per day, and perceived importance of vaccination increased by 0.006% per day, suggesting sustained public engagement with vaccine awareness and acceptance.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the utility of social media data in evaluating public responses to vaccination policy. The findings suggest that recent policy interventions in China were associated with reduced access concerns and enhanced public confidence in HPV vaccination.
METHODS: We collected over 2.90 million user-generated HPV-related posts from Sina Weibo, China’s largest social media platform, spanning December 2021 to December 2024. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling combined with manual classification identified 16 key topics across five thematic domains: vaccine accessibility, acceptability, awareness, gender-related discussion, and pandemic-related narratives. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis was applied to examine changes in topic prevalence following policy implementation.
RESULTS: After the National Action Plan was launched, discussions on vaccine shortage decreased by 0.018% per day, and discussions on financial burden decreased by 0.005% per day , indicating a significant decline in attention to vaccine accessibility barriers. In contrast, discussions related to vaccine knowledge increased by 0.017% per day, and perceived importance of vaccination increased by 0.006% per day, suggesting sustained public engagement with vaccine awareness and acceptance.
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates the utility of social media data in evaluating public responses to vaccination policy. The findings suggest that recent policy interventions in China were associated with reduced access concerns and enhanced public confidence in HPV vaccination.
Conference/Value in Health Info
2025-11, ISPOR Europe 2025, Glasgow, Scotland
Value in Health, Volume 28, Issue S2
Code
HPR221
Topic
Epidemiology & Public Health, Health Policy & Regulatory, Methodological & Statistical Research
Topic Subcategory
Health Disparities & Equity
Disease
Vaccines