Spanish Facebook Posts as an Indicator of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Texas

Abstract: Vaccination represents a major public health intervention intended to protect against COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations. However, vaccine hesitancy due to misinformation/disinformation, especially among ethnic minority groups, negatively impacts the effectiveness of such an intervention. The aim of the study is to provide an understanding of how information gleaned from social media can be used to improve attitudes towards vaccination and decrease vaccine hesitancy. This work focused on Spanish-language posts and will highlight the relationship between vaccination rates across different Texas counties and the sentiment and emotional content of Facebook data, the most popular platform among the Hispanic population. The analysis of this valuable dataset indicates that vaccination rates among this minority group are negatively correlated with negative sentiment and fear, meaning that the higher prevalence of negative and fearful posts reveals lower vaccination rates in these counties. This first study investigating vaccine hesitancy in the Hispanic population suggests that social media listening can be a valuable tool for measuring attitudes toward public health interventions.