Public Responses and Concerns Regarding Vape Bans on Reddit: A Longitudinal Topic Modeling Approach

Public responses toward vaping (i.e. electronic cigarette use) and vape bans have been hotly debated on social media. This study investigated vape-ban-related posts (n = 6,547) published between August 15, 2019 and February 15, 2020 on Reddit, a news aggregation social networking site that tolerates discussions that may be self-censored on other platforms. We conducted time series analysis and structural topic modeling to track public responses to the vape ban over a six-month period. Results showed that Google searches for vaping-related information were significantly associated with vape-ban-related posting activity on Reddit; and that eight topics emerged from the data, which included (1) Donald Trump, (2) vaping products, (3) liberty and autonomy, (4) inaccurate media reporting, (5) loopholes in state vape bans, (6) tobacco industry influence and the stupidity of ban, (7) the contrast between vaping and other more dangerous issues (e.g. school shootings, suicides), and (8) encouraging vapers to “vape on” (continue to vape). Each topic was examined in terms of their modelled longitudinal prevalence. All eight topics shared a similar theme of advocating vaping, although Redditors provided nuanced responses across time as the vaping epidemic unfolded. Social media discourse is promising to provide real-time indications of public response for diseases and epidemic surveillance, and to shed light on broader societal issues beyond the specific public health context.