ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2020
Creating COVID-19 Stigma by Referencing the Novel Coronavirus as the "Chinese virus" on Twitter: Quantitative Analysis of Social Media Data.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
88 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Overcoming health misinformation in marginalized groups: a systematic review.International journal for equity in health · 2025Pooled it
- A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review of the Impacts of Coronavirus on Society and Culture.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Effectiveness of a Video-Based Intervention on Reducing Perceptions of Fear, Loneliness, and Public Stigma Related to COVID-19: A Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of public health · 2021Trial
- Associations between Vicarious Anti-Black and Anti-Asian Racism and Sleep in Black, Asian, and White Young Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Networks of Negativity: Gaining Attention Through Cyberbullying.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- From Tweets to Streets: Observational Study on the Association Between Twitter Sentiment and Anti-Asian Hate Crimes in New York City from 2019 to 2022.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Observational
- Psychological Distress and Behavioral Vigilance in Response to Minority Stress and Threat among Members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community during the COVID-19 Pandemic.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2024Article
- Perceived racism and discrimination and youth substance use in the United States - Intersections with sex and ethnicity.Preventive medicine · 2024Article
- #StopAsianHate: A content analysis of TikTok videos focused on racial discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.Dialogues in health · 2023Article
- COVID-19 health information trust and prejudicial attitudes predict healthcare disruptions in the first year of COVID-19 among people living with HIV.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2023Article
- The Role of Social Media in Building Pandemic Resilience in an Urban Community: A Qualitative Case Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The cost of anti-Asian racism during the COVID-19 pandemic.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Development of a COVID-19-Related Anti-Asian Tweet Data Set: Quantitative Study.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- User-Chatbot Conversations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Study Based on Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Article
- Teaching controversial socio-scientific issues in online exhibits of science museums: Covid-19 on the scene.Disciplinary and interdisciplinary science education research · 2023Article
- Living with COVID-19 and preparing for future pandemics: revisiting lessons from the HIV pandemic.The lancet. HIV · 2023Review
- The experiences of UK-Chinese individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative interview study.PloS one · 2023Article
- Public health risk communication through the lens of a quarantined community: Insights from a coronavirus hotspot in Germany.PloS one · 2023Article
- [The covid-19 pandemic and international mobility in Brazil: challenges for the health and social protection of international migrants in times of uncertainty].Historia, ciencias, saude--Manguinhos · 2023Review
28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundStigma is the deleterious, structural force that devalues members of groups that hold undesirable characteristics. Since stigma is created and reinforced by society-through in-person and online social interactions-referencing the novel coronavirus as the "Chinese virus" or "China virus" has the potential to create and perpetuate stigma.
objectiveThe aim of this study was to assess if there was an increase in the prevalence and frequency of the phrases "Chinese virus" and "China virus" on Twitter after the March 16, 2020, US presidential reference of this term.
methodsUsing the Sysomos software (Sysomos, Inc), we extracted tweets from the United States using a list of keywords that were derivatives of "Chinese virus." We compared tweets at the national and state levels posted between March 9 and March 15 (preperiod) with those posted between March 19 and March 25 (postperiod). We used Stata 16 (StataCorp) for quantitative analysis, and Python (Python Software Foundation) to plot a state-level heat map.
resultsA total of 16,535 "Chinese virus" or "China virus" tweets were identified in the preperiod, and 177,327 tweets were identified in the postperiod, illustrating a nearly ten-fold increase at the national level. All 50 states witnessed an increase in the number of tweets exclusively mentioning "Chinese virus" or "China virus" instead of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) or coronavirus. On average, 0.38 tweets referencing "Chinese virus" or "China virus" were posted per 10,000 people at the state level in the preperiod, and 4.08 of these stigmatizing tweets were posted in the postperiod, also indicating a ten-fold increase. The 5 states with the highest number of postperiod "Chinese virus" tweets were Pennsylvania (n=5249), New York (n=11,754), Florida (n=13,070), Texas (n=14,861), and California (n=19,442). Adjusting for population size, the 5 states with the highest prevalence of postperiod "Chinese virus" tweets were Arizona (5.85), New York (6.04), Florida (6.09), Nevada (7.72), and Wyoming (8.76). The 5 states with the largest increase in pre- to postperiod "Chinese virus" tweets were Kansas (n=697/58, 1202%), South Dakota (n=185/15, 1233%), Mississippi (n=749/54, 1387%), New Hampshire (n=582/41, 1420%), and Idaho (n=670/46, 1457%).
conclusionsThe rise in tweets referencing "Chinese virus" or "China virus," along with the content of these tweets, indicate that knowledge translation may be occurring online and COVID-19 stigma is likely being perpetuated on Twitter.
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