Description

VERDI Qual explored the contextual factors surrounding the 2022 mpox outbreak in endemic (Nigeria) and non-endemic (Italy, United Kingdom) regions. It employed innovative and diverse approaches including content analysis and corpus linguistic analysis of news media discourse on mpox (Nigeria, Italy, United Kindgom), representations of mpox on social media (Nigeria, United Kingdom), focus group discussions with affected communities (Nigeria, United Kingdom), and semi-structured interviews with people affected by mpox and healthcare providers (Nigeria). This work has informed the development of a qualitative umbrella protocol (see link below) which allows rapid deployment of qualitative methods in infectious disease outbreaks.

Countries involved: Italy, Nigeria, United Kingdom

Publications:

• Malory B, Le Prevost M, Nicholls EJ, Bilardi D, Choudhry A, Tariq S. British news media representations of mpox during the 2022 and 2024 outbreaks: a mixed-methods analysis using corpus linguistics. medRxiv. Published September 30, 2025. doi:10.1101/2025.09.30.25336981
• Le Prevost M, Nicholls EJ, Bilardi D, David A, Kandasamy S, Stizioli M, Denford S, May T, Tan E, Tariq S. Representations of mpox in UK news media during the 2022 outbreak: a qualitative analysis. Research Square. Published September 2025. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-7659306/v1
• Nicholls EJ, Le Prevost M, Gomes W, Witzel TC, Bilardi D, Denford S, May T, Tariq S. Representations of mpox by healthcare professionals and scientists on TikTok: a qualitative analysis of TikTok content and comments. JMIR Preprints. Published September 22, 2025. doi:10.2196/preprints.84502
• Osa-Afiana C, Le Prevost M, Nicholls EJ, Bilardi D, Guadamuz TE, Soje-Amadosi EE, Adebisi GI, Adirieje C, Adetunji AA, Yusufu K, Witzel TC, Waratworawan W, Samoh N, May T, Denford S, Gomes W, Adirieje U, Tariq S, Sam-Agudu NA. Rapid Qualitative Approaches in Pandemic Research: Protocol for an Exploratory Qualitative Multimethod Study (VERDIQual) on Mpox in Italy, Nigeria, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. JMIR Res Protoc. 2026 Jan 15;15:e77321. doi:10.2196/77321