{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,20]],"date-time":"2026-06-20T08:17:49Z","timestamp":1781943469673,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":43,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]],"date-time":"2021-04-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1619395200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007364","name":"Fondazione CRT","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007364","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007364","name":"Fondazione CRT","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007364","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007364","name":"Fondazione CRT","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007364","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007364","name":"Fondazione CRT","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007364","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100007364","name":"Fondazione CRT","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100007364","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100009885","name":"Regione Piemonte","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["POR FESR 14\/20 - CANP - Cod. 320 - 16"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["POR FESR 14\/20 - CANP - Cod. 320 - 16"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100009885","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.ploscompbiol.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS Comput Biol"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Vaccine hesitancy is considered as one of the leading causes for the resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases. A non-negligible minority of parents does not fully adhere to the recommended vaccination schedule, leading their children to be partially immunized and at higher risk of contracting vaccine preventable diseases. Here, we leverage more than one million comments of 201,986 users posted from March 2008 to April 2019 on the public online forum BabyCenter US to learn more about such parents. For 32% with geographic location, we find the number of mapped users for each US state resembling the census population distribution with good agreement. We employ Natural Language Processing to identify 6884 and 10,131 users expressing their intention of following the recommended and alternative vaccination schedule, respectively RSUs and ASUs. From the analysis of their activity on the forum we find that ASUs have distinctly different interests and previous experiences with vaccination than RSUs. In particular, ASUs are more likely to follow groups focused on alternative medicine, are two times more likely to have experienced adverse events following immunization, and to mention more serious adverse reactions such as seizure or developmental regression. Content analysis of comments shows that the resources most frequently shared by both groups point to governmental domains (.gov). Finally, network analysis shows that RSUs and ASUs communicate between each other (indicating the absence of echo chambers), however with the latter group being more endogamic and favoring interactions with other ASUs. While our findings are limited to the specific platform analyzed, our approach may provide additional insights for the development of campaigns targeting parents on digital platforms.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008919","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]],"date-time":"2021-04-26T17:26:48Z","timestamp":1619458008000},"page":"e1008919","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Detecting adherence to the recommended childhood vaccination schedule from user-generated content in a US parenting forum"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1376-1330","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Lorenzo","family":"Betti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2415-494X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Gianmarco","family":"De Francisci Morales","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3085-8641","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Laetitia","family":"Gauvin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8068-5916","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Kyriaki","family":"Kalimeri","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5560-4109","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Yelena","family":"Mejova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1356-3470","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Daniela","family":"Paolotti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9161-5339","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Michele","family":"Starnini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref001","unstructured":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pertussis Outbreaks; 2019. Available from: https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/pertussis\/outbreaks.html."},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref002","unstructured":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Measles Cases and Outbreaks; 2019. Available from: https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/measles\/cases-outbreaks.html."},{"issue":"5","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"112","DOI":"10.15585\/mmwr.mm6805a4","article-title":"Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Aged 18 Years or Younger\u2014United States, 2019","volume":"68","author":"CL Robinson","year":"2019","journal-title":"MMWR Morbidity and mortality weekly report"},{"issue":"3","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1542\/peds.2019-0783","article-title":"Adherence to Timely Vaccinations in the United States","volume":"145","author":"AL Hargreaves","year":"2020","journal-title":"Pediatrics"},{"issue":"5","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"281","DOI":"10.1016\/S2352-4642(19)30092-6","article-title":"Vaccine hesitancy: a generation at risk","volume":"3","author":"The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health","year":"2019","journal-title":"The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health"},{"issue":"11","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1060","DOI":"10.1001\/jamapediatrics.2013.2353","article-title":"Association Between Undervaccination With Diphtheria, Tetanus Toxoids, and Acellular Pertussis (DTaP) Vaccine and Risk of Pertussis Infection in Children 3 to 36 Months of Age","volume":"167","author":"JM Glanz","year":"2013","journal-title":"JAMA Pediatrics"},{"issue":"11","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1149","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.2016.1353","article-title":"Association Between Vaccine Refusal and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States: A Review of Measles and Pertussis","volume":"315","author":"VK Phadke","year":"2016","journal-title":"JAMA"},{"issue":"22","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.aaz4037","article-title":"Transmission dynamics of and insights from the 2018\u20132019 measles outbreak in New York City: A modeling study","volume":"6","author":"W Yang","year":"2020","journal-title":"Science Advances"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref009","unstructured":"Wellcome Trust. Chapter 5: Attitudes to Vaccines in Wellcome Global Monitor; 2018. Available from: https:\/\/wellcome.org\/reports\/wellcome-global-monitor\/2018\/chapter-5-attitudes-vaccines."},{"issue":"34","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4161","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2015.04.036","article-title":"Vaccine hesitancy: Definition, scope and determinants","volume":"33","author":"NE MacDonald","year":"2015","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"issue":"12","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjopen-2019-033245","article-title":"Current tools available for investigating vaccine hesitancy: a scoping review protocol","volume":"9","author":"EO Oduwole","year":"2019","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"issue":"34","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4191","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2015.04.041","article-title":"Strategies intended to address vaccine hesitancy: Review of published reviews","volume":"33","author":"E Dub\u00e9","year":"2015","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"550","DOI":"10.1016\/j.amepre.2015.10.002","article-title":"Understanding Vaccine Refusal: Why We Need Social Media Now","volume":"50","author":"M Dredze","year":"2016","journal-title":"American journal of preventive medicine"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e0230947","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0230947","article-title":"Pregnancy and health in the age of the Internet: A content analysis of online \u201cbirth club\u201d forums","volume":"15","author":"A Wexler","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLOS ONE"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"468","DOI":"10.1142\/9789814749411_0043","volume-title":"Biocomputing 2016: Proceedings of the Pacific symposium","author":"MJ Paul","year":"2016"},{"issue":"51","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7152","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2015.11.007","article-title":"Arguments and sources on Italian online forums on childhood vaccinations: Results of a content analysis","volume":"33","author":"M Fadda","year":"2015","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"issue":"2","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e166","DOI":"10.2196\/publichealth.6586","article-title":"\u201cMommy Blogs\u201d and the Vaccination Exemption Narrative: Results From A Machine-Learning Approach for Story Aggregation on Parenting Social Media Sites","volume":"2","author":"TR Tangherlini","year":"2016","journal-title":"JMIR Public Health Surveill"},{"issue":"1","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e12480","DOI":"10.2196\/12480","article-title":"Characterizing Trends in Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Discourse on Reddit (2007-2015): An Observational Study","volume":"5","author":"Y Lama","year":"2019","journal-title":"JMIR Public Health Surveill"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref019","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the International Workshop on Digital Disease Detection using Social Media 2017 (DDDSM-2017)","author":"M Skeppstedt","year":"2017"},{"issue":"1","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref020","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"27","DOI":"10.1038\/s41746-019-0102-4","article-title":"Leveraging deep learning to understand health beliefs about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine from social media","volume":"2","author":"J Du","year":"2019","journal-title":"npj Digital Medicine"},{"issue":"2","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref021","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"225","DOI":"10.1093\/jamia\/ocz191","article-title":"Mining Twitter to assess the determinants of health behavior toward human papillomavirus vaccination in the United States","volume":"27","author":"H Zhang","year":"2019","journal-title":"Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association"},{"issue":"3","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref022","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2056305119865465","DOI":"10.1177\/2056305119865465","article-title":"Examining Emergent Communities and Social Bots Within the Polarized Online Vaccination Debate in Twitter","volume":"5","author":"X Yuan","year":"2019","journal-title":"Social Media + Society"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref023","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hample JM. Analysis of arguments favoring vaccine resistance. In: Goodwin J, editor. Between scientists & citizens: Proceedings of a conference at Iowa State University; 2012. p. 183\u2013193.","DOI":"10.31274\/sciencecommunication-180809-68"},{"issue":"3","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref024","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e265","DOI":"10.17269\/CJPH.108.5944","article-title":"Parents\u2019 online discussions about children\u2019s dental caries: A critical content analysis","volume":"108","author":"A Milne","year":"2017","journal-title":"Canadian Journal of Public Health"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref025","unstructured":"BabyCenter. About BabyCenter, L.L.C.; 2019. Available from: https:\/\/www.babycenter.com\/about#subtopic-bc20aboutcmpabtus."},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref026","unstructured":"BabyCenter. Terms of Use; 2020. Available from: https:\/\/www.babycenter.com\/help-aboutus-terms."},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref027","unstructured":"SpaCy. Industrial-Strength Natural Language Processing;. 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Available from: https:\/\/ojs.aaai.org\/index.php\/ICWSM\/article\/view\/7285.","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v14i1.7285"},{"issue":"25","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref031","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3606","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2018.05.040","article-title":"Polarization of the vaccination debate on Facebook","volume":"36","author":"AL Schmidt","year":"2018","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"issue":"9","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref032","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0132562","article-title":"Going against the Herd: Psychological and Cultural Factors Underlying the \u2018Vaccination Confidence Gap\u2019","volume":"10","author":"M Browne","year":"2015","journal-title":"PLOS ONE"},{"issue":"7","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref033","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1709","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2009.12.022","article-title":"A postmodern Pandora\u2019s box: Anti-vaccination misinformation on the Internet","volume":"28","author":"A Kata","year":"2010","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref034","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Kalimeri K, G Beir\u00f3 M, Urbinati A, Bonanomi A, Rosina A, Cattuto C. Human Values and Attitudes towards Vaccination in Social Media. In: Companion Proceedings of The 2019 World Wide Web Conference. Association for Computing Machinery; 2019. p. 248\u2013254. Available from: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3308560.3316489.","DOI":"10.1145\/3308560.3316489"},{"issue":"12","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref035","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2178","DOI":"10.1007\/s10995-017-2336-6","article-title":"Influences on Immunization Decision-Making among US Parents of Young Children","volume":"21","author":"Y Chung","year":"2017","journal-title":"Maternal and Child Health Journal"},{"issue":"48","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref036","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6703","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2015.10.090","article-title":"\u201cEverybody just wants to do what\u2019s best for their child\u201d: Understanding how pro-vaccine parents can support a culture of vaccine hesitancy","volume":"33","author":"E Wang","year":"2015","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref037","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"379","DOI":"10.1016\/j.pedhc.2015.04.012","article-title":"Googling for Information About Alternative Vaccination Schedules","volume":"29","author":"C Babaoff","year":"2015","journal-title":"Journal of Pediatric Health Care"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref038","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Scepanovic S, Martin-Lopez E, Quercia D, Baykaner K. Extracting Medical Entities from Social Media. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Health, Inference, and Learning. CHIL\u201920. Association for Computing Machinery; 2020. p. 170\u2013181. Available from: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3368555.3384467.","DOI":"10.1145\/3368555.3384467"},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref039","unstructured":"WHO Europe. Vaccine Safety Events: managing the communications response; 2013. Available from: https:\/\/www.euro.who.int\/__data\/assets\/pdf_file\/0007\/187171\/Vaccine-Safety-Events-managing-the-communications-response.pdf."},{"key":"pcbi.1008919.ref040","unstructured":"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. World Immunization Week; 2019. Available from: https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/globalhealth\/socialmedia\/toolkits\/global-world-immunization-week.html."},{"issue":"6","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref041","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1542\/peds.2017-1117","article-title":"Web-based Social Media Intervention to Increase Vaccine Acceptance: A Randomized Controlled Trial","volume":"140","author":"JM Glanz","year":"2017","journal-title":"Pediatrics"},{"issue":"S3","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref042","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"S278","DOI":"10.2105\/AJPH.2020.305916","article-title":"Correction as a Solution for Health Misinformation on Social Media","volume":"110","author":"EK Vraga","year":"2020","journal-title":"American Journal of Public Health"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1008919.ref043","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2056305120978377","DOI":"10.1177\/2056305120978377","article-title":"Mobilizing Users: Does Exposure to Misinformation and Its Correction Affect Users\u2019 Responses to a Health Misinformation Post?","volume":"6","author":"M Tully","year":"2020","journal-title":"Social Media + Society"}],"container-title":["PLOS Computational Biology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008919","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,12,25]],"date-time":"2022-12-25T13:21:56Z","timestamp":1671974516000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008919"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Roger Dimitri","family":"Kouyos","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]]},"references-count":43,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1008919","relation":{},"ISSN":["1553-7358"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1553-7358","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,4,26]]}}}