Dataset Information

Emergence of knowledge communities and information centralization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Background

As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, an infodemic - i.e., an over-abundance of information, reliable or not - spreads across the physical and the digital worlds, triggering behavioral responses which cause public health concern.

Methods

We study 200 million interactions captured from Twitter during the early stage of the pandemic, from January to April 2020, to understand its socio-informational structure on a global scale.

Findings

The COVID-19 global communication network is characterized by knowledge groups, hierarchically organized in sub-groups with well-defined geo-political and ideological characteristics. Communication is mostly segregated within groups and driven by a small number of subjects: 0.1% of users account for up to 45% and 10% of activities and news shared, respectively, centralizing the information flow.

Interpretation

Contradicting the idea that digital social media favor active participation and co-creation of online content, our results imply that public health policy strategies to counter the effects of the infodemic must not only focus on information content, but also on the social articulation of its diffusion mechanisms, as a given community tends to be relatively impermeable to news generated by non-aligned sources.

SUBMITTER: Sacco PL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8417351 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Emergence of knowledge communities and information centralization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sacco Pier Luigi PL Gallotti Riccardo R Pilati Federico F Castaldo Nicola N De Domenico Manlio M

Social science & medicine (1982) 20210731

<h4>Background</h4>As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, an infodemic - i.e., an over-abundance of information, reliable or not - spreads across the physical and the digital worlds, triggering behavioral responses which cause public health concern.<h4>Methods</h4>We study 200 million interactions captured from Twitter during the early stage of the pandemic, from January to April 2020, to understand its socio-informational structure on a global scale.<h4>Findings</h4>The COVID-19 global communication ne ...[more]

PMID: 34364158

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Project description:Knowledge/awareness significantly influences people's dietary choices, lifestyle, and inadvertently their health outcomes; hence it is imperative that people have correct information with regards to food and health. This study was undertaken to establish the role of nutrition knowledge on dietary choices and habits of people in Calabar, especially after the hard COVID-19 lockdown, and to ascertain if there was any positive or negative effect on the lifestyle of the people. It consisted of a cross-sectional survey in Calabar, Cross River State - Nigeria. An online questionnaire was prepared after sample size determination and its content validated. The questionnaire was designed to obtain data on the socio-economic status, participants' lifestyle, and changes in dietary intake/health before and during the COVID-19 lockdown, while the questionnaire link was in circulation for 6 weeks (April/May 2021). Descriptive statistics was used to define the proportion of responses for each question and Pearson's correlation was used to check for association between variables. Most participants were undergraduates depending on parents/sponsors. Financial decline appeared to have contributed to a post lockdown decrease in food consumption. Many (82.6%) respondents recorded high nutrition knowledge scores (NKS) and 83.1% of the respondents had high health scores. The results show that NKS influenced the kind of foods the respondents consumed frequently and there was a positive correlation between NKS consumption of fruits/vegetables. NKS had effect on their access to healthy foods and it varied significantly with respondent's total health score. No association existed between NKS and the reason for skipping meal - 'lack of time to prepare meals'. Nutrition knowledge and proper awareness, contributed significantly in dietary choices (regardless of limited resources), thus ensuring adequate nutrition and reduced health problems (most respondents recorded high health scores) during a pandemic. This study affirms the effectiveness of adequate nutrition education and awareness in ensuring healthy dietary choices, promoting optimal health, and reducing risks of diseases.

Dataset Information

Emergence of knowledge communities and information centralization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

Methods

Findings

Interpretation

Publications

Emergence of knowledge communities and information centralization during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similar Datasets

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