Key issues in Japan's public health centers to prepare for future pandemics: a text mining study using a topic model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In Japan, over 450 public health centers played a central role in the operation of the local public health system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to identify key issues for improving the system for public health centers for future pandemics.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire. The respondents were first line workers in public health centers or local governments during the pandemic. We solicited open-ended responses concerning improvements needed for future pandemics. Issues were identified from these descriptions using morphological analysis and a topic model with KHcoder3.0. The number of topics was estimated using Perplexity as a measure, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation for meaning identification.

SUBMITTER: Sakai K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11100133 | biostudies-literature | 2024 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature