Zhou J, Zhang Q, Zeng DD, Tsui KL. (2018). Influence of flavors on the propagation of e-cigarette-related information: Social media study. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. 4(1):e27. doi: 10.2196/publichealth.7998
Researchers analyzed user interactions on e-cigarette related Facebook pages to evaluate how flavors affect propagation of e-cigarette-related posts on social media. Researchers used the Facebook application programming interface (API) to extract 384,792 posts made by English-speaking users in the United States (determined by user ID) from 7,132 e-cigarette-related pages. Researchers used numbers of shares, likes, and comments as indicators of propagation. Researchers identified frequency of keywords related to 11 flavor categories (i.e., beverage, coffee, sweet, dessert and bakery, fruits, herbs and spices, menthol and mint, nutty, cream, tobacco, chocolate) occurring in posts. In addition to flavor variables, researchers identified keywords related to promotions, product details, methods for using e-cigarettes, and miscellaneous discussion to represent control variables. Additional control variables were based on level of page activity and engagement and inclusion of URLs and hashtags in posts. Researchers found different patterns of user engagement on promotional posts than other posts and created a model that excluded promotional posts to explain the influence of flavor categories on post propagation. Mention of sweet, dessert and bakery, fruits, herbs and spices, and tobacco e-cigarette flavors was significantly related to lower levels of post propagation. There were no significant positive relationships between mentioning flavors and post propagation. Researchers hypothesized that concerns over the safety of e-cigarette flavorings may impact relationships between flavors and post propagation and suggest that qualitative analysis of e-cigarette-related posts could shed light on user sentiment towards e-cigarette flavorings.