![]() Recent surveys show that populist ideology is associated with a higher degree of distrust in political and scientific institutions, leading to a heightened acceptance of COVID-19–related conspiracy theories, with such distrust associated with a lower level of education, health literacy, and the use of logic thinking. In the medical populism regarding Ebola, HIV, drug addiction, and the antivaccination movement, the medical and scientific communities are framed as elites to be blamed and distrusted. A common thread in populism is the dichotomy between virtuous people and the elite or establishment, which is perceived as corrupt. ![]() ![]() The COVID-19 pandemic presents an interest case of medical populism, defined as “as a political style based on performances of public health crises that pit ‘the people’ against the dangerous others, which consists of ‘the establishment’”. There are growing calls to study the politicization of public health issues to understand competing interests and ideologies in public health measures. We then proceed to 2 existing gaps in the existent literature, leading to our proposed computational framework. We first situate the case study of mask wearing in the context of medical populism, followed by the introduction of infoveillance. This project seeks to present an improved infoveillance framework to understand public health discourse varied by political and apolitical groups. Although there is a growing body of infoveillance studies that leverage the latest digital analytic tools to document and compare public health discourse, we notice several gaps. ![]() Infoveillance based on web-based discourse provides ways to understand the political nature and implications of public health issues. Understanding the political context within which public health measures and messaging are being implemented is critical to maximizing the success of attempts to protect population health. National surveys demonstrate a clear link between political-right partisanship and Christian-nationalist ideologies and resistance to government-mandated COVID-19 restrictions. Armed protests against mask wearing were held across US cities. Populist leaders and parties sought to politicize mask wearing calling the public health response to the pandemic government overreach and a conspiracy. The effectiveness of mask wearing to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been much debated as the scientific literature has evolved rapidly, and messages from official government and medical advisory bodies have been mixed since the early days of this pandemic it is also likely that fierce antimask sentiment more closely reflects deeply rooted anti-Asian racism and xenophobia, as well as populist and nativist resentments. It could also have resulted from widespread unproven medical claims from many conservative media outlets and influencers. This could be a result of mixed messaging-early in the pandemic, some public health institutions (eg, World Health Organization and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and media advised against mask wearing, citing concerns regarding mask shortage for health care workers and the efficacy of masks. However, public health efforts to mandate or recommend mask wearing have been met with public skepticism, and in some cases, outright resistance. Mask wearing is one of the few early and effective nonpharmaceutical interventions to curb the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis that has taken millions of lives, devastated the world economy, and disrupted almost every aspect of human society.
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