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I have designed a new course in visual analytics that I am teaching this spring 2022 at Ohio University. The visual analytics hands-on course trains students to work on interactive visual interfaces that support analytical reasoning and reveal vital actionable insights. This course introduces students to concepts, tools, and best practices in visual analytics as they examine and uncover hidden opportunities deep within big data. Interactive visual representations are integrated within underlying analytical processes, including descriptive and predictive analytics, to facilitate high-level data-driven decision-making. Based on readings, cases studies, tutorials, and analytics assignments, course emphasis is on providing a thorough understanding of visual analytics tools. Students learn to go beyond charts and graphs to create multi-dimensional exploratory views of data. The aim is to equip students to think like data analysts equipped with the knowledge and understanding of visual analytics principles, creating effective dashboards and visual analytics solutions using Tableau.

Learning outcomes

Students fully engaging with this class and completing all the assignments successfully will, as a minimum be able to:

• Access and connect data to support high-quality analyses.
• Visually transform data to support assessment, planning, and decision-making.
• Create, analyze, and evaluate representations of dynamic data in dashboards.
• Demonstrate the recognition of patterns within data through perceptual inference of relationships.
• Identify patterns of predictive analytics in the appropriate contexts.

You can access the syllabus of the Visual Analytics course in pdf format here: syllabus

I am pleased to share our latest research published in the Technology in Society journal, analyzing attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine passports. Due to the uncertainty created by the Covid-19 pandemic, numerous countries have attempted to put in place systems to shield their economies and citizens from the pandemic’s worst effects. Agencies, governments, and schools are all working to discover ways to persuade individuals to be vaccinated. In some places, people who have not been vaccinated are being subjected to restrictions. 

Various health agencies have suggested that COVID-19 vaccination is the most effective way to deal with the pandemic and prevent the virus from spreading. As a result, a vaccination card known as the Covid-19 passport has been introduced in various countries serving as proof of immunization. A vaccine passport or certificate has proven helpful in multiple situations, particularly while traveling to foreign nations. International health authorities and some governments (such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, and China) have already adopted COVID-passports, which now act as certifications to formalize and verify vaccination status. Several arguments have been expressed on numerous forums against some of these measures, which seem restrictive and infringe on personal freedoms and rights. However, including introducing some form of certification or the COVID passport is seen by others as part of the ongoing attempt to restore economies and lives to normalcy.

The study employed the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to offer an exploratory analysis of Twitter data about COVID-19 passports. We analyzed Tweets about the COVID-19 passport. A total of 19,730 tweets were retrieved using Twitter API, and keywords COVID* or corona* AND passport OR certificate. We further coded the analytical sample according to nine dimensions: (i) account type (male, female, or organization); (ii) tweeter occupation; (iii) tweet content (personal opinion, news & information, and link to a petition or a poll; (iv) tweet modality (text, URL/link, image, and/or video; (v) attitude (positive, negative, neutral; (vi) self-efficacy (whether the tweet implied knowledge, confidence, or information of how to get the COVID passport; (vii) perceived barriers; (viii) perceived benefits; and (ix) cues to action.

We found that most Twitter users thought that the COVID-19 passport was a good idea. The analysis also revealed that personal Twitter accounts accounted for 49 percent of COVID-19 passport tweets, followed by media organizations with 23.87 percent, media and art celebrities with 14.19 percent, politicians with 4.5 percent, and the tourism industry with 2.58 percent. According to gender, 52 percent of the tweets came from men, 16.1 percent from women, and the rest came from unidentified accounts or groups. Supporters of the vaccine passport also saw it as nothing new, claiming a range of social and economic benefits to justify their position. The findings reveal the path forward in establishing a viable COVID-19 passport system. The COVID-19 passports are clearly aimed towards resuming international trade, travel, and other social activities in the wake of the current epidemic without risking public health and safety. Our study offers the following policy recommendations:

1. Define specific use-cases: The uses of vaccine passports need to be clearly defined and rationalized to alleviate public concerns about employers’ discrimination and ensure equitable access to business and government services.
2. Ensure interoperability: Adopted solutions must be interoperable and should leverage standards that enable the seamless exchange of information across disparate technology platforms and different geographic boundaries.
3. Safeguard personal and health data: Data protection and privacy requirements should be seriously considered and openly communicated to alleviate concerns about data breaches, fraud, and forgery and disallow technology used for tracking and surveillance.
4. Establish legal guidelines: Clear laws that define the scope of vaccine passport programs and their permissible use, along with a timeline for the planned duration of such programs, would help improve public confidence and achieve greater acceptance.
5. Community consultation and engagement: Public dialogue can help reduce tensions in implementing vaccine passport programs. Engaging trusted community members can help foster trust in the program and improve the uptake of vaccine passports.

The abstract of the study is as follows:

In several countries, vaccine passports are being encouraged to hasten the return to some form of normalcy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. A vaccine passport is a digital or paper document that may serve as proof of the COVID-19 vaccine, thereby allowing entry to public venues, sporting events, air travel, and unrestricted access to other facilities. This study explores how the COVID-19 passport is being discussed and perceived on Twitter and the prominent entities involved in the early discourse on the issue. Twitter messages were theoretically analyzed for Health Belief Model (HBM) and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) variables, as well as message source, engagement, and attitudes towards vaccination certificates. Using quantitative content analysis, tweets were coded on nine dimensions: account type, tweeter profile, tweet content, tweet modality, attitude, self-efficacy, perceived barriers, benefits, and action cues. Most of the tweets originated from personal accounts, followed by media organizations, media-related personalities, politicians, and the travel industry. A significant number of tweets were from male Twitter users. Our analysis revealed that most tweeters had a favorable attitude towards the COVID-19 passports. Unfavorable attitudes toward the COVID-19 passport were based on reasons such as a lack of common standard or consensus and personal freedoms & human rights. Tweets highlighting the benefits of COVID-19 passports cited travel as the primary reason. Based on a combination of technical, legal, and ethical practices, our study offers a set of vital recommendations for governments, health organizations, and businesses that may help stimulate the acceptance of vaccine passports.

Khan, M. Laeeq, Malik, A., Ruhi, U, & Al-Busaidi, A. (2022). Conflicting attitudes: Analyzing social media data to understand the early discourse on COVID-19 passports, Technology in Society, 68, 101830, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101830

The study can be accessed via the following link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101830

I am pleased to share my latest collaborative research with scholars from Finland and Italy. The research has been published in the Health and Technology journal and is titled, Characterizing HIV discussions and engagement on Twitter. The study examines social media data to understand HIV related discussions and engagements.

The abstract of the study is as follows:

The novel settings provided by social media facilitate users to seek and share information on a wide array of subjects, including healthcare and wellness. Analyzing health-related opinions and discussions on these platforms complement traditional public health surveillance systems to support timely and effective interventions. This study aims to characterize the HIV-related conversations on Twitter by identifying the prevalent topics and the key events and actors involved in these discussions. Through Twitter API, we collected tweets containing the hashtag #HIV for a one-year period. After pre-processing the collected data, we conducted engagement analysis, temporal analysis, and topic modeling algorithm on the analytical sample (n = 122,807). Tweets by HIV/AIDS/LGBTQ activists and physicians received the highest level of engagement. An upsurge in tweet volume and engagement was observed during global and local events such as World Aids Day and HIV/AIDS awareness and testing days for trans-genders, blacks, women, and the aged population. Eight topics were identified that include “stigma”, “prevention”, “epidemic in the developing countries”, “World Aids Day”, “treatment”, “events”, “PrEP”, and “testing”. Social media discussions offer a nuanced understanding of public opinions, beliefs, and sentiments about numerous health-related issues. The current study reports various dimensions of HIV-related posts on Twitter. Based on the findings, public health agencies and pertinent entities need to proactively use Twitter and other social media by engaging the public through involving influencers. The undertaken methodological choices may be applied to further assess HIV discourse on other popular social media platforms.

The study can be cited as follows:

Malik, A., Antonino, A., Khan, M.L. et al. Characterizing HIV discussions and engagement on Twitter. Health Technol. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-021-00577-z

We conclude as follows:

The current study utilized publicly available Twitter data on HIV by applying a data-driven approach to understand the conversations and key entities and events driving the engagement. Findings from the current study provide actionable insights that may further support enhancing awareness and prevention messaging, developing testing services, bolstering PrEP uptake, and optimizing clinical and community interventions. The wide adoption of social media and its use for health purposes as a participatory and interactive source hold significant implications for HIV education, care, and prevention efforts. Social media holds great potential in digital surveillance and interventions related to HIV as it is rather easier to reach diverse, underserved, ethnic, and high-risk groups. Effective use of social media by offering relevant, timely, and factual information and interventions can be highly cost-effective and can change individual behaviors and social norms about HIV.

I am pleased to share that my collaborative research has been published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. With my colleagues from Aalto University in Finland (Dr. Aqdas Malik, lead author) and Western University in Canada (Dr. Anabel Quan-Haase), we explored how public health agencies engaged with their audiences through Instagram especially during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The abstract of the research study is as follows:

Abstract: Governmental and non-governmental institutions increasingly use social media as a strategic tool for public outreach. Global spread, promptness, and dialogic potentials make these platforms ideal for public health monitoring and emergency communication in crises such as COVID-19. Drawing on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication framework, we sought to examine how leading health organizations use Instagram for communicating and engaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. We manually retrieved Instagram posts together with relevant metadata of four health organizations (WHO, CDC, IFRC, and NHS) shared between January 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020. Two coders manually coded the analytical sample of 269 posts related to COVID-19 on dimensions including content theme, gender depiction, person portrayal, and image type. We further analyzed engagement indices associated with the coded dimensions. The CDC and WHO were the most active of all the assessed organizations with respect to the number of posts, reach, and engagement indices. Most of the posts were about personal preventive measures and mitigation, general advisory and vigilance, and showing gratitude and resilience. An overwhelming level of engagement was observed for posts representing celebrity, clarification, and infographics. Instagram can be an effective tool for health organizations to convey their messages during crisis communication, notably through celebrity involvement, clarification posts, and the use of infographics. There is much opportunity to strengthen the role of health organizations in countering misinformation on social media by providing accurate information, directing users to credible sources, and serving as a fact-check for false information.

A promise of social media is that it provides a level playing field to any entity with varied budgets and mandates. Instagram can be an effective tool in crisis communication, reaching a large, engaged audience through celebrity involvement, clarification posts, and the use of infographics. From a CERC perspective, the current research has identified gaps in social media communication during a pandemic or crisis situation. Our findings also serve as a roadmap for strengthening the strategic social media communications of health organizations during public health emergencies such as COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, Instagram is an ideal venue for reaching youth in crises and emergencies, as this demographic does not rely on mainstream media as their main source of news information. There is much opportunity to strengthen the role of health organizations in countering misinformation on Instagram and other social media by providing accurate information, directing users to credible sources, and serving as a fact-check for false information.

A pdf of the article can be downloaded here.