VaxxHesitancy: A Dataset for Studying Hesitancy towards COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter

Understand

Vaccine hesitancy has been a common concern, probably since vaccines were created and, with the popularisation of social media, people started to express their concerns about vaccines online alongside those posting pro- and anti-vaccine content.

• Predictably, since the first mentions of a COVID-19 vaccine, social media users posted about their fears and concerns or about their support and belief into the effectiveness of these rapidly developing vaccines.
• Identifying and understanding the reasons behind public hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines is important for policy markers that need to develop actions to better inform the population with the aim of increasing vaccine take-up.
• In the case of COVID-19, where the fast development of the vaccines was mirrored closely by growth in anti-vaxx disinformation, automatic means of detecting citizen attitudes towards vaccination became necessary.