COVID-19 and Public Health: Analysis of Opinions in Social Media

Abstract

The article presents the results of research of public opinion during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. The study touches on the attitude of citizens to public health, as well as the reaction of social media users to government measures in a crisis situation during a pandemic. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of infodemic and methods of detecting cases of the spread of false and unverified information about diseases. The article demonstrates the application of an interdisciplinary approach using network analysis of texts and sociological research. A model for detecting social stress in the textual communication of social network users using a specially trained neural network and linguistic analysis methods is presented. The validity and validity of the results of the analysis of social network data were verified using a sociological survey. This approach allows us to identify points of tension in matters of public health promotion, during crisis situations to improve interaction between the government and society, and to timely adjust government plans and actions to ensure resilience in emergency situations for public health purposes.