scholarly journals Looking inside the “black box” of vaccine hesitancy: unlocking the effect of psychological attitudes and beliefs on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and implications for public health communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
S. Barello ◽  
L. Palamenghi ◽  
G. Graffigna
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Hughes ◽  
C. Miller-Idriss ◽  
R. Piltch-Loeb ◽  
K. White ◽  
M. Creizis ◽  
...  

AbstractVaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative coding methodology to identify salient narratives and rhetorical styles common to anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media. It organizes these narratives and rhetorics according to theme, imagined antagonist, and frequency. Most frequent were narratives centered on “corrupt elites” and rhetorics appealing to the vulnerability of children. The identification of these narratives and rhetorics may assist in developing effective public health messaging campaigns, since narrative and emotion have demonstrated persuasive effectiveness in other public health communication settings.


Author(s):  
Brian Hughes ◽  
Cynthia Miller-Idriss ◽  
Rachael Piltch-Loeb ◽  
Beth Goldberg ◽  
Kesa White ◽  
...  

Vaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative coding methodology to identify salient narratives and rhetorical styles common to anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media. It organizes these narratives and rhetorics according to theme, imagined antagonist, and frequency. Most frequent were narratives centered on “corrupt elites” and rhetorics appealing to the vulnerability of children. The identification of these narratives and rhetorics may assist in developing effective public health messaging campaigns, since narrative and emotion have demonstrated persuasive effectiveness in other public health communication settings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Santamaría ◽  
Joaquín Hortal

Abstract One of the largest nationwide bursts of the first COVID-19 outbreak occurred in Spain, where infection expanded in densely populated areas through March 2020. We analyse the cumulative growth curves of reported cases and deaths in all Spain and two highly populated regions, Madrid and Catalonia, identifying changes and sudden shifts in their exponential growth rate through segmented Poisson regressions. We associate these breakpoints with a timeline of key events and containment measures, and data on policy stringency and citizen mobility. Results were largely consistent for infections and deaths in all territories, showing four major shifts involving 19–71% reductions in growth rates originating from infections before 3 March and on 5–8, 10–12 and 14–18 March, but no identifiable effect of the strengthened lockdown of 29–30 March. Changes in stringency and mobility were only associated to the latter two shifts, evidencing an early deceleration in COVID-19 spread associated to personal hygiene and social distancing recommendations, followed by a stronger decrease when lockdown was enforced, leading to the contention of the outbreak by mid-April. This highlights the importance of combining public health communication strategies and hard confinement measures to contain epidemics.


2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Cummings

Public health communication makes extensive use of a linguistic formulation that will be called the “no evidence” statement. This is a written or spoken statement of the form “There is no evidence that P” where P stands for a proposition that typically describes a human health risk. Danger lurks in these expressions for the hearer or reader who is not logically perspicacious, as arguments that use them are only warranted under certain conditions. The extent to which members of the public are able to determine what those conditions are will be considered by examining data obtained from 879 subjects. The role of “no evidence” statements as cognitive heuristics in public health reasoning is considered.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wambua ◽  
Lisa Hermans ◽  
Pietro Coletti ◽  
Frederik Verelst ◽  
Lander Willem ◽  
...  

Abstract Human behaviour is known to be crucial in the propagation of infectious diseases through respiratory or close-contact routes like the current SARS-CoV-2 virus. Intervention measures implemented to curb the spread of the virus mainly aim at limiting the number of close contacts, until vaccine roll-out is complete. Our main objective was to assess the relationships between SARS-CoV-2 perceptions and social contact behaviour in Belgium. Understanding these relationships is crucial to maximize interventions' effectiveness, e.g. by tailoring public health communication campaigns. In this study, we surveyed a representative sample of adults in Belgium in two longitudinal surveys (8 waves of survey 1 in April 2020 to August 2020, and 11 waves of survey 2 in November 2020 to April 2021). Generalized linear mixed effects models were used to analyse the two surveys. Participants with low and neutral perceptions on perceived severity made a significantly higher number of social contacts as compared to participants with high levels of perceived severity after controlling for other variables. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of perceived effectiveness of measures and perceived adherence to measures made fewer contacts. However, the differences were small. Our results highlight the key role of perceived severity on social contact behaviour during a pandemic. Nevertheless, additional research is required to investigate the impact of public health communication on severity of COVID-19 in terms of changes in social contact behaviour.


Author(s):  
Laura Filardo-Llamas

Several studies have shown evidence for the significant role that metaphors play in public health communication. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered not only the use of common communication frameworks such as war metaphors, but also the creative use of metaphors, which is particularly relevant in the case of cartoonists. This article presents a review of the different metaphors used in cartoons (both in Spanish and in English), with the aim of compiling different metaphorical uses and reflecting upon the evaluative function of metaphors and how they contribute to expressing different visions of reality. The examples collected here show not only how certain social and political actions are legitimised or discredited, but also how these uses often appeal to particular contextual knowledge.


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