Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Vaccination Intent in the U.K. and U.S.
2021
Widespread acceptance of a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be the next major step to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, but high uptake achievement will be a challenge and may be impeded by online misinformation. This article is a randomized controlled trial in the U.K. and the U.S. with the objective to quantify how exposure to online misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines affects intent to vaccinate to protect oneself or others.
The authors report that in both countries – as of September 2020 – fewer people would ‘definitely’ take a vaccine than is likely required for herd immunity, and that, relative to factual information, recent misinformation induced a decline in intent of 6.2 percentage points (95th percentile interval 3.9 to 8.5) in the U.K. and 6.4 percentage points (95th percentile interval 4.0 to 8.8) in the U.S. among those who stated that they would definitely accept a vaccine. They found that sociodemographic groups are differentially impacted by exposure to misinformation and that scientific-sounding misinformation is more strongly associated with declines in vaccination intent.
This description was adapted from the publication abstract.
Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Vaccination Intent in the U.K. and U.S.
Source:
Loomba S, de Figueiredo A, Piatek SJ et al. Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Vaccination Intent in the U.K. and U.S.A. Nature Human Behavior 2021; 5: 337-348. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01056-1