Securing the Goalposts on Vaccine Hesitancy

Abstract

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy appears sharply divided along political lines. The aim of this project is to quantitatively assess to what degree vaccine hesitancy is driven by a lack of information on COVID-19 and its vaccines, and to what degree it is driven by politically motivated reasoning and exposure to abundant misinformation. Using a large-scale randomized control trial, we test scalable interventions to combat misinformation and potentially biased reasoning on vaccination. Ultimately, we hope to deliver communication tools that allow healthcare providers to identify which individuals will be receptive to good-faith conversations on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination as well as productively engage those who are otherwise determined to reject any information that is perceived to be pro-vaccination. Our approach adapts the communication tools of "Paradoxical Reasoning" which were developed to unfreeze entrenched beliefs in the context of the most intractable conflicts (e.g., the Israeli-Palestinian border conflict).

Note:
Funding Information: Funding for the project was provided by the British Academy.

Conflict of Interests: No one on the research team has any competing interests related to the study.

Ethical Approval: Ethics approval by the University of Nottingham. All subjects consented to participation at the beginning of the study.