Exploring childhood anti-vaccine and pro-vaccine communities on twitter – a perspective from influential users

Abstract Anti-vaccine information online continues to deter optimum childhood vaccination coverage. Tweets from influential users about childhood vaccines are assessed to determine vaccine information on Twitter. Results indicate a well-connected anti-vaccine community where influential users widely share vaccine misinformation. Sentiment analysis finds negative tweets populate both pro- and anti-vaccine communities confirming the popularity of negative sentiment on social media. Geo-location clusters for influential users were identified. The identification of influential users and their geo-locations may provide useful information to assist with curving online vaccine misinformation and detecting areas of potential disease outbreak.