Open AccessEmphasize personal health benefits to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates
Author(s) -
Madison Ashworth,
Linda Thunström,
Todd L. Cherry,
Stephen C. Newbold,
David Finnoff
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2108225118
Subject(s) - pandemic , covid-19 , public health , vaccination , environmental health , business , variety (cybernetics) , sample (material) , information dissemination , public relations , internet privacy , medicine , political science , virology , nursing , infectious disease (medical specialty) , computer science , outbreak , chemistry , disease , pathology , artificial intelligence , chromatography , world wide web
The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a tremendous scientific response to the current global pandemic. However, vaccines per se do not save lives and restart economies. Their success depends on the number of people getting vaccinated. We used a survey experiment to examine the impact on vaccine intentions of a variety of public health messages identified as particularly promising: three messages that emphasize different benefits from the vaccines (personal health, the health of others, and the recovery of local and national economies) and one message that emphasizes vaccine safety. Because people will likely be exposed to multiple messages in the real world, we also examined the effect of these messages in combination. Based on a nationally quota representative sample of 3,048 adults in the United States, our findings suggest that several forms of public messages can increase vaccine intentions, but messaging that emphasizes personal health benefits had the largest impact.