Combating Online Misinformation Regarding Vaccinations The Influence of a Warning Tool on Information Choice
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...
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| Published in: | European journal of health communication Vol. 4; no. 2; pp. 93 - 112 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
09-06-2023
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | 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. |
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| ISSN: | 2673-5903 2673-5903 |
| DOI: | 10.47368/ejhc.2023.205 |