Abstract
Study Objective
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has shown efficacy, however, many vaccine-eligible
persons remain unvaccinated. YouTube is a popular video-sharing platform with several
topics, including the HPV vaccine. Our purpose was to examine the tone of YouTube
videos toward the HPV vaccine, accuracy of the information displayed, and content
of commentary.
Design
In this observational study we investigated publicly available content regarding the
HPV vaccine on the video-sharing Web site YouTube (www.youtube.com). Videos and comments were collected between June 22, 2014 and December 19, 2014.
A total of 35 videos, with the 100 most recent comments for each video were collected
and coded by a single researcher. A 25% subsample were coded by a second researcher
to ensure inter-rater agreement of greater than 80%.
Setting, Participants, and Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
Videos were evaluated for 4 types of information: descriptive information, tone toward
the vaccine (anti- or pro-vaccine), content, and commentary content, sorted according
to 11 frequently identified themes.
Results
Most videos were negative in tone toward the vaccine. The tone of the video was not
a predictor of video popularity. Pro-vaccine videos were 4 times more likely to report
information accurately than anti-vaccine videos. Anti-vaccine videos were more likely
to report information incorrectly and omit information. The most frequent commentary
themes were concerning serious side effects, conspiracy theories, and vaccines generally
being unhealthy.
Conclusion
The Internet is an important resource for the general population; widely viewed YouTube
videos contain erroneous and incomplete information. Anti-vaccine ideology is prevalent
in video content and commentary.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 13, 2018
Footnotes
The authors indicate no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. Published by Elsevier Inc.
