Nudges for COVID-19 voluntary vaccination: How to explain peer information?

Sasaki, Shusaku; Saito, Tomoya; Ohtake, Fumio

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114561

Cited by 54 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…However, this norms effect proved ineffective in significantly raising self-vaccination intent compared to the control message, consistent with COVID-19 vaccine studies involving norms. [22,23]. Helfinstein et al also found that descriptive norms had little effect on risk recommendation to others, which reflects our negative observations with respect to vaccine recommendation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Risky choice frames that pit vaccine related death rates or side effects against the COVID-19 disease has not been studied among the general public. Although descriptive norms have been widely studied to nudge COVID-19 vaccination by invoking psychological judgments that vaccination is a societally approved behavior, [19,20,22,23] these messages have yet to be framed to imply vaccine safety as a motivation for vaccination among the majority. The effect of using vaccinated health authorities to imply vaccine safety and recommend the vaccine has also not been thoroughly studied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

When do persuasive messages on vaccine safety steer COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and recommendations? Behavioral insights from a randomised controlled experiment in Malaysia

Hing

Woon

Lee

et al. 2022

Preprint

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IntroductionVaccine safety is a primary concern among vaccine hesitant individuals. We examined how seven persuasive messages with different frames, all focusing on vaccine safety, influenced Malaysians to accept the COVID-19 vaccine, and recommend it to individuals with different health and age profiles; i.e. healthy adults, elderly, and people with pre-existing health conditions.MethodsA randomized controlled experiment was conducted among 5,784 Malaysians who were randomly allocated into 14 experimental arms. They were exposed to one or two messages that promoted COVID-19 vaccination. Interventional messages were applied alone or in combination and compared against a control message. Outcome measures were assessed as intent to both take the vaccine and recommend it to healthy adults, elderly, and people with pre-existing health conditions, before and after message exposure. Changes in intent after message exposure were modeled and we estimate the average marginal effects with respect to changes in the predicted probability of selecting a positive intent for all four outcomes.ResultsThe average baseline proportion of participants with positive intents in each arm to take, and recommend the vaccine to healthy adults, elderly, and people with pre-existing health conditions was 61.6%, 84.9%, 72.7% and 51.4% respectively. We found that persuasive communication via several of the experimented messages improved recommendation intent to people with pre-existing health conditions, with improvements ranging between 4 to 8 percentage points. In contrast, none of the messages neither significantly improved vaccination intentions, nor recommendations to healthy adults and the elderly. Instead, we found evidence suggestive of backfiring among this group with messages using negative frames, risky choice frames, and priming descriptive norms.ConclusionPersuasive messages aimed at influencing vaccination decisions should incorporate a combination of factors linked to hesitancy. Messages intended to promote recommendation of novel health interventions to people with pre-existing health conditions should incorporate safety dimensions.Clinical Trials registration numberNCT05244356Key Messages1.What is already known?Persuasive messages have been shown to influence COVID-19 vaccination intentions, but evidence from Low- and Middle-income countries are limited.There are limited studies investigating the effect of persuasive messages in influencing decisions to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine, with only a single study to date which investigated effects directed at recommending the COVID-19 vaccine to a friend, but without considering the individual’s health and age profile.2.What are the new findings?Persuasive messages that focused on vaccine safety did not positively influence Malaysian adults to take the COVID-19 vaccine or recommend it to healthy adults and the elderly, while messages framed as descriptive norms, negative attribute, and risky choices, significantly backfired for some of these outcomes.Several persuasive messages focusing on vaccine safety significantly improved intent to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to people with pre-existing health conditions.3.What do the new findings imply?Instead of only addressing safety, persuasive messages aimed at nudging vaccination should incorporate multiple behavioral determinants linked to vaccine acceptance.Persuasive messages that are intended to promote uptake of novel health interventions should incorporate safety dimensions as a form of assurance for others to recommend it to people with pre-existing health conditions, given that they may be perceived as more susceptible to hazards from adverse events.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

When do persuasive messages on vaccine safety steer COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and recommendations? Behavioral insights from a randomised controlled experiment in Malaysia

Hing

Woon

Lee

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, experimental data suggest that actual properties such as the risk of side effects, efficiency and region of vaccine origin might affect vaccination uptake ( Motta, 2021 ). In terms of communication policies, experimental research on nudging strategies already indicates that framing individuals’ vaccination decisions as encouragement for unknown others to also be vaccinated could be an effective strategy, particularly among older individuals ( Sasaki, Saito, & Ohtake, 2022 ). Moreover, financial incentives and communication about the impact of vaccinations on infections and herd immunity appear to be ineffective in promoting vaccination intention ( Sprengholz et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The social gradient in COVID-19 vaccination intentions and the role of solidarity beliefs among adolescents

Patzina

Dietrich

2022

SSM - Population Health

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“…Even though the majority of studies deal with American participants, some studies have also examined the question of nudges' effectiveness in the context of COVID-19 in other countries. For example, Sasaki et al (2021) conducted an experiment in Japan and found that the effect of a descriptive social norm was restricted to the older population which already had such intention. Another study using descriptive social norm, by Moehring et al (2021), found an average effect of enhancing that intention in the more hesitant group in an experiment which was conducted in 23 countries.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Can vaccination intentions against COVID-19 be nudged?

Kantorowicz‐Reznichenko

Kantorowicz

Wells

2022

Behav. Public Policy

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Once vaccines against COVID-19 became available in many countries, a new challenge has emerged – how to increase the number of people who vaccinate? Different policies are being considered and implemented, including behaviourally informed interventions (i.e., nudges). In this study, we have experimentally examined two types of nudges on representative samples of two countries – descriptive social norms (Israel) and saliency of either the death experience from COVID-19 or its symptoms (UK). To increase the legitimacy of nudges, we have also examined the effectiveness of transparent nudges, where the goal of the nudge and the reasons of its implementation (expected effectiveness) were disclosed. We did not find evidence that informing people that the vast majority of their country-people intend to vaccinate enhanced vaccination intentions in Israel. We also did not find evidence that making the death experience from COVID-19, or its hard symptoms, salient enhanced vaccination intentions in the UK. Finally, transparent nudges as well did not change the results. We further provide evidence for the reasons why people choose not to vaccinate, and whether different factors such as gender, belief in conspiracy theories, political ideology, and risk perception, play a role in people's intentions to vaccinate or susceptibility to nudges.

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Nudges for COVID-19 voluntary vaccination: How to explain peer information?

Cited by 54 publications

References 70 publications

When do persuasive messages on vaccine safety steer COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and recommendations? Behavioral insights from a randomised controlled experiment in Malaysia

When do persuasive messages on vaccine safety steer COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and recommendations? Behavioral insights from a randomised controlled experiment in Malaysia

The social gradient in COVID-19 vaccination intentions and the role of solidarity beliefs among adolescents

Can vaccination intentions against COVID-19 be nudged?

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