Analyzing Spatio-temporal Patterns of Online Public Attentions in Emergency Events: A Case Study of 2009 H1N1 Influenza Outbreak in China

摘要

Understanding the public attention and perception towards epidemics is critical for public health response. However, the research question concerning the spatio-temporal patterns of public attention and the interactions with media attention and severity of epidemic is still not well studied. Aim to fill this research gap, we chose the H1N1 influenza outbreak in the mainland of China in 2009 as case to study the spatio-temporal patterns of public attention, and their correlations with media attention and severity of epidemic. The results of this paper indicate that public attention and media attention had high correlation from both temporal and spatial perspectives, which can provide us significant insights to understand the collective behavior of massive online users during emergency events.