Combating Online Misinformation Regarding Vaccinations

Autor: Leonie Westerbeek, Hanneke Hendriks, Eline S. Smit, Corine S. Meppelink
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: European Journal of Health Communication (EJHC), Vol 4, Iss 2 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2673-5903
DOI: 10.47368/ejhc.2023.205
Popis: An increasing number of parents refrain from vaccinating their children. This causes lower immunisation coverage, resulting in disease outbreaks. Online misinformation about early-childhood vaccination is a potential cause of this problem. This study tests whether a warning tool, with the appearance of a traffic light, can influence parents’ information choices. An online experiment was conducted with parents and expecting parents (N = 179) with varying pre-existing attitudes and in different decision stages. Participants were asked to select three vaccine-related web links on a Google search result page either with or without the warning tool present. Results showed that participants in the warning tool condition (i.e., who saw reliability labels) selected a higher number of links marked as reliable compared to participants in the control group. No significant moderating effect of decision stage and pre-existing attitude were found. As our findings suggest that a warning tool can lead to better-informed vaccination decisions, the implementation of such a warning tool may prove worthwhile.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals