Public Health Messages to Address Vaccine Hesitancy
Study Details
Study Description
Brief Summary
Views on vaccines range from those who are strongly supportive to those who are stridently opposed and will not budge from identity-based core beliefs about vaccines. In between these poles are numerous others who can delay, be reluctant (but still accept), or refuse/accept some vaccines for their children but not others. It is for these vaccine-hesitant parents that constitute the 'middle ground' of this spectrum where the most immediate and productive gains can be made towards enhancing vaccination acceptance and improving uptake. However, navigating this noisy communications environment is difficult, given the array of confusing and conflicting information available from multiple and competing sources. To date, there is no consensus on how best to use communication to respond to vaccine hesitancy. Building on two Canada-wide surveys of parents, the goal of this research is to identify which communication strategies show the greatest impact in reducing parental vaccine hesitancy and improving vaccination intentions.
The specific objectives are to:
-
Develop and pre-test four variations of news media stories that vary by source (parent versus physician) and content (intuitive versus deliberative);
-
Examine the impact of vaccine hesitant parents' exposure to vaccine communications that vary in source (parent versus physician) and content (intuitive versus deliberative) on primary (vaccine hesitant attitudes) and secondary (vaccine intentions) outcomes; and
-
Explore which media story variation may be more effective in improving vaccination attitudes and intentions for different parental decision-making styles (deliberative versus intuitive).
| Condition or Disease | Intervention/Treatment | Phase |
|---|---|---|
|
N/A |
Study Design
Arms and Interventions
| Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
|---|---|
| Experimental: Parent source + intuitive story content
|
Behavioral: Parent source
Having a parent feature prominently in a news story
Behavioral: Intuitive content
News story content focuses on the consequences of not vaccinating (including vaccine preventable diseases) and the decisional regret.
|
| Experimental: Doctor source + intuitive story content
|
Behavioral: Doctor source
Having a doctor feature prominently in a news story
Behavioral: Intuitive content
News story content focuses on the consequences of not vaccinating (including vaccine preventable diseases) and the decisional regret.
|
| Experimental: Parent source + deliberative content
|
Behavioral: Parent source
Having a parent feature prominently in a news story
Behavioral: Deliberative content
News story content includes process of weighing the risks/benefits of vaccinating, the importance of vaccines for community protection, and concludes with a recommendation to vaccinate.
|
| Experimental: Doctor source + deliberative content
|
Behavioral: Doctor source
Having a doctor feature prominently in a news story
Behavioral: Deliberative content
News story content includes process of weighing the risks/benefits of vaccinating, the importance of vaccines for community protection, and concludes with a recommendation to vaccinate.
|
Outcome Measures
Primary Outcome Measures
- Vaccine Hesitancy [Change in baseline measured up to 1 day after content delivery]
Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV). The PACV is a validated 15 question survey on vaccine hesitancy.
Secondary Outcome Measures
- Intention to Vaccinate [Change in baseline measured up to 1 day after content delivery]
intention to vaccinate item using a 5 point likert scale ranging from very unlikely to vaccinate to very likely to vaccinate, and see if there is a one-response shift in participant intentions among vaccine hesitant parents.
Eligibility Criteria
Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
- Parents over 18 living in Canada with a YOUNGEST child is less than 24 months.
Exclusion Criteria:
-
Parents who have a YOUNGEST child older than 24 months
-
A parent who is pregnant, before the first trimester is complete
Contacts and Locations
Locations
| Site | City | State | Country | Postal Code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Manitoba | Winnipeg | Manitoba | Canada | R2M 3Y9 |
Sponsors and Collaborators
- University of Manitoba
- Canadian Immunization Research Network
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Michelle Driedger, PhD, University of Manitoba
Study Documents (Full-Text)
None provided.More Information
Publications
- Opel DJ, Taylor JA, Zhou C, Catz S, Myaing M, Mangione-Smith R. The relationship between parent attitudes about childhood vaccines survey scores and future child immunization status: a validation study. JAMA Pediatr. 2013 Nov;167(11):1065-71. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.2483.
- Pachur T, Spaar, M. Domain-specific preferences for intuition and deliberation in decision making. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 4:303-311, 2015.
- H2016:390