Communicating the potential to prevent death may help shift vaccine hesitancy

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-10-01 01:00

International

A survey of 2,556 Canadian adults compared communication strategies to reduce hesitance toward two less-popular COVID-19 vaccines - AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Respondents who were given information on the vaccines’ potential for preventing death reported a higher likelihood of taking these vaccines if offered, compared with those who did not receive this information. Conversely, people who received information on the effectiveness in preventing disease were less likely to accept the vaccines. The authors say strategies that focus on vaccines' death prevention potential could help boost uptake, while highlighting efficacy against disease symptoms may lower uptake.

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conference: JAMA Network Open

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Organisation/s: University of Toronto, Canada

Funder: This study was supported by grants from 19toZero, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the University of Toronto to Drs Merkley and Loewen. Role of the Funder/Sponsor: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

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