COVID-19 vaccine intention linked to trust in opinion of health experts, media literacy

An early pandemic survey discovered that respondents’ intentions to obtain COVID-19 vaccines had been linked extra to their media literacy and opinion of well being specialists than data of the virus or earlier vaccination conduct.

Within the examine, revealed within the American Journal of Well being Promotion, Washington State College researchers additionally discovered that for respondents who had lately refused a flu vaccine, greater COVID-19 data really correlated with decrease future vaccine intentions.

Now we have identified for a while that data and former conduct can present useful clues to what individuals will do, however that’s usually inadequate to reliably predict conduct. What we discovered was that measurements of belief in specialists, the flexibility to determine dependable media sources and the flexibility to critically consider these media sources had been extra highly effective predictors than both earlier vaccine conduct or earlier data.”

Erica Austin, Director of the WSU Murrow Middle for Media and Well being Promotion

For this examine, the researchers performed an internet survey of 1,264 U.S. adults. The outcomes point out that individuals had been partaking in what’s referred to as motivated reasoning: the psychological course of by which individuals consciously and selectively use info to result in a conclusion that reinforces their desired beliefs reasonably than rationally analyzing the proof.

Based on the authors, such processes are closely influenced by the continually altering information atmosphere. It’s a maze of data, misinformation, which is unintentionally incorrect, and disinformation, which is deliberately false.

“There are individuals on the market who’re motivated to take that little little bit of misinformation and construct an entire bunch of misinformation and even disinformation to attempt to promote you an concept or product based mostly round it,” Austin mentioned. “Most frequently they’re promoting you each, however they’re in all probability not on the market to do one thing good for you; they’re often on the market to do one thing that is good for themselves.”

The outcomes have vital implications for well being promotion follow and analysis, Austin added. It highlights the importance of people’ makes an attempt to independently confirm data and the necessity to domesticate their belief in well being specialists. The researchers additionally suggest that public well being campaigns be certain that to respect people’ freedom to make selections for themselves whereas serving to them make these selections based mostly on correct data from credible sources.

Along with Austin, co-authors on the examine embody Bruce Austin from WSU’s Faculty of Training, Porismita Borah and Shawn Domgaard from WSU’s Murrow Faculty of Communication in addition to Sterling McPherson from WSU’s Elson S. Floyd Faculty of Drugs.