Navigating the Evolving Landscape of COVID-19: Strategies to Increase Vaccine Confidence and Improve Vaccination Rates in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on every individual in the United States. The launch of the COVID-19 vaccines is estimated to have averted millions of deaths and reduced over 18 million COVID-19-related hospitalizations. In September 2023, the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine, which includes a monovalent component that corresponds to the omicron variant XBB.

Social Media and Vaccine Hesitancy: Help Us Move the Needle.

With more than 75% of parents and pediatric caregivers getting their health-related information online, reaching families on social media is a powerful way to leverage the trust built in the examination room to address vaccine hesitancy. This article first reviews the ways the antivaccine movement has leveraged social media to expand its considerable influence, and why social media companies have failed to reduce antivaccine misinformation and disinformation. Next, it reviews the barriers to adoption of social media-based communication by pediatric health-care providers and concludes with action-oriented items to increase the adoption of this powerful tool.

#DoctorsSpeakUp: Lessons learned from a pro-vaccine Twitter event.

Background: In response to growing anti-vaccine activism on social media, the #DoctorsSpeakUp event was designed to promote pro-vaccine advocacy. This study aimed to analyze Twitter content related to the event to determine (1) characteristics of the Twitter users who authored these tweets, (2) the proportion of tweets expressing pro-vaccine compared to anti-vaccine sentiment, and (3) the content of these tweets.

Methods: Data were collected using Twitter's Filtered Streams Interface, and included all publicly available tweets with the "#DoctorsSpeakUp" hashtag on March 5, 2020, the day of the event.

It's not all about autism: The emerging landscape of anti-vaccination sentiment on Facebook.

Background: Due in part to declining vaccination rates, in 2018 over 20 states reported at least one case of measles, and over 40,000 cases were confirmed in Europe. Anti-vaccine posts on social media may be facilitating anti-vaccination behaviour. This study aimed to systematically characterize (1) individuals known to publicly post anti-vaccination content on Facebook, (2) the information they convey, and (3) the spread of this content.

Psychometric evaluation of a caregiver diary for the assessment of symptoms of respiratory syncytial virus.

Background: There are no clinical outcome assessment (COA) tools developed in accordance with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance suitable for the evaluation of symptoms associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection among infants. The Gilead RSV Caregiver Diary (GRCD) is being developed to fulfill this need; the present research evaluates the GRCD and documents its reliability, validity, and responsiveness among children < 24 months of age with acute RSV infection.

Methods: A prospective, observational study was conducted in the United States during the 2014-2015 northern hemisphere winter season.