Results of social networks monitoring within assessing population’s satisfaction with sanitary-epidemiological situation

Introduction. People’s satisfaction with a sanitary-epidemiological situation in a residence area is a significant factor describing their quality of life, subjectively perceived wellbeing, and happiness. Monitoring of users’ messages in social networks can become an effective method for assessing population’s satisfaction with a high potential of being integrated into practical management.

Aim. To describe Russians’ public opinion on the quality of the environment and its impact on population health within assessing satisfaction with a sanitary-epidemiological situation

Materials and methods. We performed content — analysis of posts and comments in the seventy-nine open access communities of three different types (a city community, an ecological community, and a protest community) in such social networks: VKontakte and Odnoklassniki published over the period between January 1, 2019 and June 15, 2023 using the LiveDune analytical server and ParseHub web scraping tool.

Results. We identified specific lexical units typical for non-expert discourse about a sanitary-epidemiological situation. Negative modality was shown to dominate in the analyzed posts (63% of all mentions, including 28% of the cases when the word ‘bad’ was used to describe the existing situation and 20% of the cases when it was described as ‘hazardous’). Utilization of domestic wastes and ambient air pollution were the most urgent issues. City communities typically concentrated on local topics; used more critical and harsher expressions. Ecological communities tended to: use specialized terminology; focus on generalized topics; discuss ecologically responsible everyday practices. Protest communities usually: had alarmistic moods; discussed impacts of environmental factors on human health. Women, young and middle-aged people expressed their opinions more actively.

Limitations. The study does not allow considering opinions of those Russians who a) have low digital literacy, b) are poorly involved into Internet communications, and c) do not have an account in the analyzed social networks. We did not cover all the posts in social networks related to issues of sanitary-epidemiological wellbeing due to a) using a sample of communities, b) considering only those posts for analysis, which fell within one of the subject categories including ‘Ambient air’, “Drinking water’ and ‘Soil’.

Conclusion. Monitoring of users’ posts in social networks makes it possible to spot out specific cases that cause public dissatisfaction, assess protest activity potential, and provide general description of social attitudes. The analysis showed the predominance of negative assessments of the state of the environment by the population — negative modality dominates in the messages of social network users, critical judgments and alarmist remarks are often found. Since most analyzed posts are locally oriented, monitoring results can be most useful for local authorities.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was accomplished in accordance with the ethical principles stated in The ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics, the Ethical Code of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and the Ethical Code of the Russian Society of Sociologists.

Contribution:
Barg A.O. — concept and design of the study, editing;
Lebedeva-Nesevria N.A. — literature review, data analysis, writing the text, editing;
Pestereva D.Yu. — collection and processing of materials, writing the text.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: February 16, 2024 / Revised: March 14, 2024 / Accepted: April 9, 2024 / Published: June 17, 2024