Shu-Feng Tsao

• Doctor of Philosophy
• PostDoc at University of Waterloo

Various communication and behavioral theories have been adopted to address health infodemics. However, there is no framework specially designed for social listening studies using social media data, machine learning, and natural language processing techniques. We aimed to propose a novel yet theory-based conceptual framework for infodemic research....

Machine learning and artificial intelligence methods are being increasingly used in the analysis ofpatient level and other health data, resulting in new insights and significant societal benefits. However,researchers are often denied access to sensitive health data due to concerns on privacy and securitybreaches. A key reason for reluctance in data...

Background The literature has identified various factors that promote or hinder people's intentions towards COVID-19 vaccination, and structural equation modelling (SEM) is a common approach to validate these associations. We propose a conceptual framework called social media infodemic listening (SoMeIL) for public health behaviours. Hypothesizing...

Background The literature has identified various factors that promote or hinder people's intentions towards COVID-19 vaccination, and structural equation modelling (SEM) is a common approach to validate these associations. We propose a conceptual framework called social media infodemic listening (SoMeIL) for public health behaviours. Hypothesizing...

Obtaining access to real-world health data is a significant challenge, mainly due to privacy and security implications. Consequently, researchers and technology innovators ̶ particularly those operating in the health data science and AI technology development spaces-increasingly resort to synthetic health data to bridge the data gap. High-quality s...

BACKGROUND Ontario stroke prevention clinics held primarily in-person visits prior to COVID-19, then had to shift to a home-based teleconsultation delivery model using telephone or video to provide services during the pandemic. This change may have affected service quality and patient satisfaction. OBJECTIVE This study sought to understand patient...

Background Ontario stroke prevention clinics primarily held in-person visits before the COVID-19 pandemic and then had to shift to a home-based teleconsultation delivery model using telephone or video to provide services during the pandemic. This change may have affected service quality and patient experiences. Objective This study seeks to unders...

Background: Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) are a significant threat to population health globally. We aimed to examine the relationship between internet search engine queries and social media data on COVID-19 and determine if they can predict COVID-19 cases in Canada. Methods: We analyzed Google Trends (GT) and Twitter data from 1/1/2020 to...

Background: Social media is an important medium for studying public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Canada, and Reddit network communities are a good source for this. Methods: This study applied a "nested analysis" framework. We collected 20378 Reddit comments via the Pushshift API and developed a BERT-based binary classification m...

With the recent advancement in the field of machine learning, health synthetic data has become a promising technique to address difficulties with time consumption when accessing and using electronic medical records for research and innovations. However, health synthetic data utility and governance have not been extensively studied. A scoping review...

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate public discourses and sentiments regarding the Freedom Convoy in Canada on Twitter. Methods: English tweets were retrieved from Twitter API from 15 January to 14 February 2022 when the Freedom Convoy occurred. Unsupervised topic modelling and sentiment analysis were applied to identify topics and sentimen...

UNSTRUCTURED During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic, existing communication and behavioural models or frameworks have been applied to address health misinformation online and offline. However, there is no theory or framework especially designed to investigate how online information on social media influences people’s behaviour. With mor...

BACKGROUND Truck drivers gathered at Ottawa, Canada for “Freedom Convoy” to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandate that went into effect on in mid-January 2022. The convoy has led to controversies and debates on social media, especially on Twitter. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate public discourses and sentiments regarding the Freedom Convo...

BACKGROUND Digital oral health misleading information has been propagated on social media to deceive people about fluoride's economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to characterize the misleading fluoride-related information on Instagram. METHODS 3,863 posts ranked by users' total interaction and publishe...

Background Online false or misleading oral health–related content has been propagated on social media to deceive people against fluoride’s economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. Objective The aim of this study was to characterize the false or misleading fluoride-related content on Instagram. MethodsA total of 3863 posts ranked by us...

Objective: This study aimed to explore topics and sentiments using tweets from Ontario, Canada, during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Tweets were collected from December 5, 2020, to March 6, 2021, excluding non-individual accounts. Dates of vaccine-related events and policy changes were collected from public health units in Onta...

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has rapidly become a crucial communication tool for information generation, dissemination, and consumption. In this scoping review, we selected and examined peer-reviewed empirical studies relating to COVID-19 and social media during the first outbreak from November, 2019, to November, 2020. Fro...

The number of farmers’ markets in the United States has increased over 300% in past two decades. Many studies have also shown a positive association between an increased access to farmers’ markets and consumption of fruits and vegetables. However, few studies have explored relationships between older consumers aged 55+ whose fruit and vegetable con...