Anti-intellectualism and the mass public’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Merkley, Eric; Loewen, Peter John

doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01112-w

Cited by 132 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…3 Vaccine hesitancy is also higher among racial and ethnic minority groups, women, those with more skepticism about childhood vaccines, and those skeptical of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2 This work 2 aligns with findings on which groups of citizens are more likely to comply with public health directives on mask usage and social distancing [4][5][6][7] and broader findings on vaccine hesitancy outside of the COVID-19 context. [8][9][10][11][12][13] Those previous works emphasize attitudinal and demographic correlates, but it is also possible that the characteristics of vaccines matter for vaccine hesitancy.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 64%

Assessment of Communication Strategies for Mitigating COVID-19 Vaccine-Specific Hesitancy in Canada

Merkley

Loewen

2021

JAMA Netw Open

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IMPORTANCE Ensuring widespread uptake of available COVID-19 vaccinations, each with different safety and efficacy profiles, is essential to combating the unfolding pandemic. OBJECTIVE To test communication interventions that may encourage the uptake of less-preferred vaccines. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This online survey was conducted from March 24 to 30, 2021, using a nonprobability convenience sample of Canadian citizens aged 18 years or older, with quota sampling to match 2016 Canadian Census benchmarks on age, gender, region, and language.Respondents completed a 2-by-2-by-2 factorial experiment with random assignment of brand (AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson), information about the vaccine's effectiveness against symptomatic infection (yes or no), and information about the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing death from COVID-19 (yes or no) before being asked about their willingness to receive their assigned vaccine and their beliefs about its effectiveness. EXPOSURES Respondents were randomly assigned a vaccine brand (AstraZeneca or Johnson &Johnson) and information about the vaccine's effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 infection (yes or no) and at preventing death from COVID-19 (yes or no). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESRespondents' self-reported likelihood of taking their assigned vaccine if offered (response categories: very likely, somewhat likely, not very likely, or not at all likely, scaled 0-1) and their beliefs about their assigned vaccine's effectiveness (response categories: very effective, somewhat effective, not very effective, or not at all effective, scaled 0-1) were measured. RESULTS A total of 2556 Canadian adults responded to the survey (median [IQR] age, 50 years; 1339 women [52%]). The self-reported likelihood of taking an assigned AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccine was higher for respondents given information about their assigned vaccine's effectiveness at preventing death from COVID-19 (b, 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.06) and lower among those given information about its overall effectiveness at preventing symptomatic transmission (b, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.05 to 0.00), compared with those who were not given the information. Perceived effectiveness was also higher among those given information about their assigned vaccine's effectiveness at preventing death from COVID-19 (b, 0.03; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.05) and lower among those given information about their assigned vaccine's overall efficacy at preventing symptomatic infection (b, −0.05; 95% CI, −0.08 to −0.03), compared with those who were not given this information. The interaction between these treatments was neither substantively nor statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThese findings suggest that providing information on the effectiveness of less-preferred vaccines at preventing death from COVID-19 is associated with more (continued) Key Points Question Are there communication strategies that can reduce COVID-19 vaccine-specific hesitancy? Findings In a between-participants survey study of adult Canadian citi...

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 64%

Assessment of Communication Strategies for Mitigating COVID-19 Vaccine-Specific Hesitancy in Canada

Merkley

Loewen

2021

JAMA Netw Open

Self Cite

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“…Because the COVID-19 vaccine has public benefits that go beyond individual protection, individuals with low social trust may be less willing to contribute to the public good by getting the vaccine. Furthermore, recent studies using survey data have been increasingly associating trust in the government with COVID-19 behavior and vaccine hesitancy, and our social media data add to this literature [52,53].…”

Section: Principal Findingsmentioning

confidence: 58%

Analyzing Social Media to Explore the Attitudes and Behaviors Following the Announcement of Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Infodemiology Study

Boucher¹,

Cornelson²,

Benham³

et al. 2021

JMIR Infodemiology

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Background The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has brought vaccine hesitancy to the forefront in managing this pandemic. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is fundamentally different from that of other vaccines due to the new technologies being used, rapid development, and widespread global distribution. Attitudes on vaccines are largely driven by online information, particularly information on social media. The first step toward influencing attitudes about immunization is understanding the current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms. Objective We aimed to evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to COVID-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance. Methods Social network analysis (SNA) and unsupervised machine learning were used to characterize COVID-19 vaccine content on Twitter globally. Tweets published in English and French were collected through the Twitter application programming interface between November 19 and 26, 2020, just following the announcement of initial COVID-19 vaccine trials. SNA was used to identify social media clusters expressing mistrustful opinions on COVID-19 vaccination. Based on the SNA results, an unsupervised machine learning approach to natural language processing using a sentence-level algorithm transfer function to detect semantic textual similarity was performed in order to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy. Results The tweets (n=636,516) identified that the main themes driving the vaccine hesitancy conversation were concerns of safety, efficacy, and freedom, and mistrust in institutions (either the government or multinational corporations). A main theme was the safety and efficacy of mRNA technology and side effects. The conversation around efficacy was that vaccines were unlikely to completely rid the population of COVID-19, polymerase chain reaction testing is flawed, and there is no indication of long-term T-cell immunity for COVID-19. Nearly one-third (45,628/146,191, 31.2%) of the conversations on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy clusters expressed concerns for freedom or mistrust of institutions (either the government or multinational corporations) and nearly a quarter (34,756/146,191, 23.8%) expressed criticism toward the government’s handling of the pandemic. Conclusions Social media content analysis combined with social network analysis provides insights into the themes of the vaccination conversation on Twitter. The themes of safety, efficacy, and trust in institutions will need to be considered, as targeted outreach programs and intervention strategies are deployed on Twitter to improve the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination.

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“…Furthermore, those who have a higher need for cognition (Xu and Cheng, 2021), higher self-control (Xu and Cheng, 2021), and higher working memory capacity (Xie et al, 2020) were more likely to follow social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, recent research has shown that anti-intellectualism (distrust of experts and intellectuals) is associated with less mask usage and social distancing (Merkley and Loewen, 2021). Given these findings, it might be suggested that scientific knowledge relates to attitudes toward COVID-19 preventive behaviors.…”

Section: Factors Associated With Attitudes Toward/ Practice Of Covid-19 Preventive Behaviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Literacy Linked to Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccinations: A Pre-Registered Study

2021

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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, is a global public health crisis. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, it is necessary to promote vaccine administration and preventive behaviors (e.g., mask, handwashing, social distancing). However, some people have negative attitudes toward vaccine administration and preventive behaviors. Based on the information-deficit model, the present study investigated how scientific literacy and perceived understanding of COVID-19 are associated with attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations and preventive behaviors. The findings demonstrated that both scientific literacy and perceived understanding of COVID-19 vaccines were positively associated with attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines. Additionally, perceived understanding of COVID-19 preventive behaviors (but not scientific literacy) was positively associated with attitudes toward/practice of COVID-19 preventive behaviors. Collectively, our findings revealed the role of cognitive factors in preventing the global public health crisis and demonstrated the roles of objective and subjective knowledge on attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccinations and preventive behaviors.

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Anti-intellectualism and the mass public’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Cited by 132 publications

References 31 publications

Assessment of Communication Strategies for Mitigating COVID-19 Vaccine-Specific Hesitancy in Canada

Assessment of Communication Strategies for Mitigating COVID-19 Vaccine-Specific Hesitancy in Canada

Analyzing Social Media to Explore the Attitudes and Behaviors Following the Announcement of Successful COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Infodemiology Study

Scientific Literacy Linked to Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccinations: A Pre-Registered Study

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