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Keywords: public health, COVID-19 pandemic, voter decisions, political rhetoric, social media, Facebook
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended life across the globe. Understanding information exchange and engagement with elected officials on social media may provide insight into how rhetoric can impact voting behavior based on issues such as health policy. Public posts (n = 16,537) containing the phrase “health” or “healthcare” between January 1st 2019 and October 26th 2020 from the Facebook pages of each member of the United States 116th Senate, as well as Republican and Democratic 2020 presidential and vice-presidential candidates, were collected using CrowdTangle, a public insights tool owned and operated by Facebook. Results suggest that officials have changed the frequency, content, and tone of their healthcare messaging since the beginning of the pandemic. Both Democrats and Republicans had significantly more healthcare posts peri-pandemic (March 15th 2020 through October 26th 2020) compared to the same period pre-pandemic (p < .01). Democratic officials had an average of 5.7 more posts related to healthcare on their official accounts (95% CI: 5.5, 5.9, p < .01) but an average of 2.4 fewer posts on their campaign accounts (95% CI: -2.8, -2.1, p < .01). There were significant pre- and peri-pandemic differences in the sentiment of healthcare posts on Republican and Democrat pages (p < .01). More words in Republican posts peri-pandemic had a connotation of anticipation (11.2% vs. 10.9%) and fear (9.3% vs. 8.6%) compared to pre-pandemic. In contrast, more words in Democrat posts peri-pandemic had a connotation of anticipation (10.6% vs. 10.2%), sadness (6.8% vs. 6.3%), and trust (15.3% vs. 15.0%). These variations in healthcare framing between political parties provides support for the impact of policy rhetoric on voter decisions. Future work could include additional officials, expand analysis (e.g., topic modeling), or extend the study period to compare results with past outbreaks such as the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic or the 2015-2016 Zika pandemic.