01896nas a2200241   4500000000100000008004100001260002300042653002800065653001700093100001400110700001200124700001200136700001100148700001600159700001600175700001200191245008900203856007000292300001200362490000600374520126000380022001401640       2020                            d  bInforma UK Limited10aSocial science research10aSocial media1 aOtieno AW1 aRoark J1 aKhan ML1 aPant S1 aGrijalva MJ1 aTitsworth S1 aFeng GC00aThe kiss of death – Unearthing conversations surrounding Chagas disease on YouTube  uhttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311886.2020.1858561  a18585610 v73 a This study employed Uses and Gratification Theory (UGT), Health Belief Model (HBM) and a mix of techniques to highlight the important role of social media in health communication. A total of 602 comments posted by YouTube users as they interacted with news items reporting on Chagas disease were thus analysed. A webbased software called Netlytic was used to capture and conduct text analytics. The sentiment of user comments on each of the five videos selected for this analysis was measured using SentiStrength. This study, therefore, achieved four objectives. First, it determined the most engaging comments amongst YouTube users as they interacted with Chagas disease news information. Second, it identified the most common issues or concerns discussed by YouTube users. Third, it analyzed the extent to which YouTube users commenting about Chagas disease conveyed information related to (a) prevention benefits, (b) barriers, (c) susceptibility to Chagas disease, (d) severity of Chagas and (e) self-efficacy as part of the Health Belief Model. And finally, it measured the levels of positive and negative sentiment in the comments made by YouTube users. Study findings, limitations, and implications for future research have been discussed as well.  a2331-1886