Culture Clicks First in Chinese Canadian Vaccine Communication

Abstract

It is strongly established that attitudes towards vaccination are shaped by trust, language, and the social contexts where people seek and share health information. The goal of this project is to examine how Chinese Canadians access and interpret vaccine information through Wenxuecity.com, an overseas Chinese diaspora portal that hosts Mandarin-language news, community discussion boards, and a user-driven health forum. We conducted a narrative review using a combination of keywords and controlled vocabulary terms across multiple databases to identify literature on Chinese Canadian health information-seeking, diaspora media use, and vaccine communication. 

To complement this synthesis, a qualitative content analysis was conducted on 20 Mandarin-language forum threads from Wenxuecity.com’s health discussion forum. Threads were selected to capture vaccine-related conversations about safety, effectiveness, side effects, eligibility, and trust in institutions. Posts were analyzed using a structured thematic codebook that tracked what sources of evidence users relied on (personal experience, family stories, news links, institutional guidance, scientific claims), how credibility was judged (quoting experts, cross-checking sources, agreement or disagreement across users), and what decisions or recommendations followed (vaccinate, delay, brand preference, or risk-mitigation strategies). Our expectation is that discussions will emphasize peer testimony, lived experience, and family-centred reasoning, alongside selective use of biomedical sources. 

To our knowledge, Wenxuecity.com remains under-studied as a site of vaccine information-seeking in the Chinese diaspora context. This project aims to inform culturally responsive vaccine communication by clarifying how credibility is built and how online community discussions shape vaccination decisions.