Using social media monitoring tool and Google Trends to study dynamics of vaccination-related online discourse

Introduction Online discourse related to vaccinations is often charged with emotions and include misinformation. Aim The main objective of the study is assesment of trends the dynamics of the online vaccination-related discourse published publicly in Polish, using social media monitoring tool and Google Trends. Material and methods The study collected the number of mentions with a social media listening tool and the number of queries with Google Trends from July 1, 2018 to October 23, 2022. The analysis included the following sources of the mentions and queries: Twitter, Facebook, online portals, and forums. Data on the COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Poland was also considered. Results and discussion A total of 34,596,976 vaccination-related mentions were included in the analysis. Kendall's tau correlation showed a positive statistical association between the daily number of mentions and the number of queries related to vaccination throughout the studied period (τ = 0.66). There was a moderate positive linear association between the number of queries and the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered in Poland (R² = 0.59). There was a weak positive linear association between the number of mentions and the number of COVID-19 vaccinations in Poland (R² = 0.23). Conclusions With the increase in the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered in Poland, corresponding increase in online vaccination-related searches (queries) occurred. Routine analysis of Google Trends combined with Internet and social media monitoring can provide reliable insight regarding public sentiment towards vaccination. Such analysis play a crucial role in formulating health policies and developing educational and promotional initiatives related to vaccination.