Safety Messaging Boosts Parental Vaccination Intention for Children Ages 5–11

Abstract

The COVID-19 vaccination rate among children ages 5–11 is low in the U.S., with parental vaccine hesitancy being the primary cause. Current work suggests that safety and side effect concerns are the primary reasons for such vaccine hesitancy. This study explores whether this hesitancy can be mitigated with information interventions. Based on theories of health decision making and persuasion, we designed four information interventions with varying contents and lengths. We wrote two messages on vaccine safety (a detailed safety-long message and a succinct safety-short message), explaining the vaccine’s lower dosage, low rate of side effects, and the rigorous approval process. We also had two messages on protection effects (protect-family, protect-child). We combined these four messages with a vaccine-irrelevant control message and compared their effects on parental vaccine intention. We measured the parental vaccination intention using a 0–6 Likert scale question. Among the four intervention groups, we found that the short version of the safety message increased the average vaccination intention by over 1 point compared to the control arm, while the other three interventions failed to show significance. Specifically, these effects are particularly pronounced (around 2 points) for Republican parents who had a much lower initial intention to vaccinate their children. Our study highlights the importance of concise and to-the-point information rendering in promoting public health activities and therefore has important policy implications for raising vaccination intentions among parents, especially those leaning towards more conservative political affiliation.

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“…Most parents believed that children were not susceptible to COVID-19 and that vaccines were not effective against the new variants. Improved public health messaging, targeted messaging [ 44 ], and governmental campaigns involving pediatricians could be effective strategies to increase awareness among parents and reduce parental hesitancy [ 45 ].…”

A randomized controlled trial of an information intervention to bolster COVID-19 vaccination intention among people with purity concerns.

“…And the “Control” material, adapted from Cui et al (2022), wrote,If you ignore office culture & protocol as a new employee, you will bring trouble to yourself at work. Every office has its own norms of functioning and work practices.…”

Can a supranational medicines agency restore trust after vaccine suspensions? The case of Vaxzevria

“…Also, the perceived lack of adequate data and concerns of long-term side effects may be stronger when children are concerned [ 8 ]. This higher hesitancy translates into lower vaccination rates among young children than among adults [ 9 ]. As far as our paper is concerned, our variable of interest is a person’s own intention to be vaccinated on a sample exclusively composed of adults.…”