Identification of public concerns about radiation through a big data analysis of questions posted on a portal site in Korea

This paper analyzed the primary concerns about radiation among the Korean public with a big data analysis of questions posted at the section of “Knowledge iN” on the portal site NAVER in Korea from January 2010 to August 2020. First, we extracted questions about radiation and categorized them into the three categories with TF-IDF analysis: “Medical,” “Career Counseling,” and “General Interest”. The “Medical” category includes questions about radiation diagnosis or treatment. The “Career Counseling” category includes questions about entering college and the prospect of finding jobs in radiation-related fields. The “General Interest” category includes questions about terminology and the basic knowledge of radiation or radioisotopes. Second, we extracted common questions for each category. Finally, we analyzed the temporal change in the numbers of questions for each category to confirm whether there is any correlation between radiation-related events and the number of questions. The analysis results demonstrate that major radiation-related events have little relevance to the number of questions except during March 2011. •We analyzed the primary concerns about radiation among the Korean public with a big data analysis of questions posted on the portal site NAVER in Korea.•We analyzed the temporal change in numbers of questions in the three categories: medical, career counseling, and general interest.•We found that major radiation-related events have little relevance to the number of questions except during March 2011.•Introduction.