An altmetric analysis of online news on India’s first indigenous COVID‑19 vaccine
نویسندگان
1 Department of Physics, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India, Research Cell, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
2 Department of Physics, Bhagini Nivedita College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
3 Department of Public Health Dentistry, TPCT’S Terna Dental College, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
4 Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
5 Department of Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
6 Department of Marketing, Chetana’s Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
7 Department of Community Medicine, GMERS Medical College, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
doi
چکیده
BACKGROUND: Covaxin is the first indigenous vaccine developed in India against COVID‑19. Thepurpose of this study was to analyze the news stories on Covaxin published in the online mediabetween two statements issued by Indian Council for Medical Research on 2nd and 4th July for theircontent, quality of information, and reporting standards.MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systematic search was performed on Google to identify the newsstories related to Covaxin in the English language published between these two statements. Theselected news stories were subjected to content analysis and reviewed using the screening pointsdeveloped through a consultation by two independent experts using ten prevalidated criteria forhealth news review. The data were analyzed in MS Excel and StataMP14.RESULTS: The final analysis included 24 news stories. The mean and median score of the newsstories is 10.71 and 12 (out of 20), respectively, with a score ranging from 2 to 17. The stories didnot promote disease or vaccine mongering (100%), adequately mentioned the true novelty of thevaccine (95.8%), and source of the information (83.3%). However, they mostly failed to mentionthe information on costs, research data related to benefits, and harms and quality of the availableevidence.CONCLUSION: There is a lack of reporting of detailed analysis about the methodology of developmentof the vaccine and limitations in its research design by health journalists. It is important to trainjournalists on proper reporting of health news to improve its quality in Indian media.
