Aust N Z J Public Health. 2021 Aug 19. doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.13143. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: In June 2020, the Australian Government announced that personal importation of nicotine vaping products (NVP) would be prohibited, pending a 12-month classification and regulation review by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. This brief report examines the themes of responses on Twitter to this announcement.
METHODS: Simple random sampling was used to retrieve tweets containing keywords from 19 to 26 June 2020. Tweets were manually coded and descriptive statistics calculated for themes and policy position.
RESULTS: The vast majority of the 1,168 tweets were anti-policy. Themes included: criticism towards government (59.8%), activism against NVP restriction (38%), potential adverse consequences (30.8%) and support for NVP restriction (1.4%). Tweets that identified potential adverse consequences of NVP restriction cited: smoking relapse for individuals currently using NVPs (75.6%); the impact of policy enforcement (8.6%); illicit market (8.3%); panic buying (3.6%); difficulty obtaining prescriptions (2.8%); and impacts on NVP businesses (2.8%).
CONCLUSION: Tweets predominately objected to the policy announcement. Approximately three-quarters of tweets that cited potential adverse consequences of the policy mentioned smoking relapse as their primary concern. Implications for public health: User-generated content on Twitter was primarily used to lobby against the proposed policy, which was subsequently amended.
PMID:34411375 | DOI:10.1111/1753-6405.13143
