Social media and vaccine hesitancy: new updates for the era of COVID-19 and globalized infectious diseases

Abstract

Despite major advances in vaccination over the past century, resurgence of vaccine-preventable illnesses has led the World Health Organization to identify vaccine hesitancy as a major threat to global health. Vaccine hesitancy may be fueled by health information obtained from a variety of sources, including new media such as the Internet and social media platforms. As access to technology has improved, social media has attained global penetrance. In contrast to traditional media, social media allow individuals to rapidly create and share content globally without editorial oversight. Users may self-select content streams, contributing to ideological isolation. As such, there are considerable public health concerns raised by anti-vaccination messaging on such platforms and the consequent potential for downstream vaccine hesitancy, including the compromise of public confidence in future vaccine development for novel pathogens, such as SARS-CoV-2 for the prevention of COVID-19. In this review, we discuss the current position of social media platforms in propagating vaccine hesitancy and explore next steps in how social media may be used to improve health literacy and foster public trust in vaccination.

Confidence and Receptivity for COVID-19 Vaccines: A Rapid Systematic Review

“…Framing vaccination as a smart, purposeful personal decision, emphasizing individual's autonomy could yield greater results. In addition to traditional media and official websites for disseminating current and accurate information, since social media is a popular source of news as well as misinformation for many [123,124], it should be a key channel in messaging and combating anti-vaccine or conspiracy theories.…”

Public Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices toward Seasonal Influenza Vaccine in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Braun and O’Leary recommended using a presumptive method of communicating with parents, social marketing and increasing awareness of the vaccination rates in schools and childcare centers, and governmental mandates in order to counter vaccine hesitancy in pediatric patients [ 55 ]. Puri et al recognized the challenges of social media and offered strategies to use this platform to spread correct information [ 56 ]. Possible solutions include facilitating direct communication between providers and patients, encouraging social media networks to prompt users to confirm the accuracy of their posts as well as the agency being diligent in identifying and flagging inappropriate and inaccurate information, and using patient narratives and/or celebrity endorsements.…”

The UPTAKE study: Implications for the future of COVID-19 vaccination trial recruitment in UK and beyond

“…This was likely to have taken in uence from social media views at the time of survey completion, particularly those highlighting adverse events from vaccine trials and vaccines trials being rushed. Furthermore, there are greater anti-vaccination sentiments shared on social media and are spread quicker compared to positive ones promoting trial uptake [22]. Multiple studies have highlighted a number of other reasons as to why trials tend to disadvantage minorities from attending.…”