Vax messaging that works

Studies have found that there is a vaccination message that works. It's interesting that different messages worked better in different countries. Furthermore, it seems those who were profoundly risk-averse were also the one who were most strongly vaccination-averse. Potential side-effects of the vaccine loomed larger in their mind than the actual risk of the disease.

A new study by Vincent Pons at the Harvard Business School and Vincenzo Galasso and Paola Profeta at Bocconi University in Milan may help explain why. They found that people can in fact be persuaded by the right message, offering new evidence about the best ways to reach skeptics. Separate analyses have identified other factors, such as seeing other people be safely vaccinated and hearing about the benefits of vaccines from doctors and loved ones.

their most interesting findings concerned the most ardent vaccine refusers. Six months later, one-third of the people who had rated themselves 0 in December had gotten vaccinated.

So what happened? What convinced them?

Some of it was circumstances. Among those who had put themselves between 0 and 3 on getting vaccinated, those who were older (and therefore at higher risk of serious illness) and concerned with their health risks were more likely to get vaccinated in spite of their skepticism. So did the people who anticipated indirect exposure to Covid-19 through their friends or relatives. People who consumed more traditional media and who had more trust in scientists were also more likely to come around

The researchers experimented with four messages in December to see how they would move people’s intentions then and their actual behavior six months later:

1. Self-Protection (If you get vaccinated, you could avoid getting infected)
2. Protecting Others (If you get vaccinated, you could avoid passing the virus to others)
3. Protecting Health (If you get vaccinated, it can help protect the health of people in your country)
4. Protecting the Economy (If you get vaccinated, it can help a return to economic activity and reduce unemployment)

The same pattern bore out six months later in behavior, though there was some variation across countries. Protecting Health ended up most effective in the EU, while Protecting Others or the Economy proved more persuasive in the US and UK. The researchers argued that, because this line of questioning reflected people’s actual decisions, not only their intentions, it should be less susceptible to social desirability bias (i.e., people saying what they think they are supposed to say).

The authors summarized their findings like this (emphasis mine):

Our most striking result is that informational treatments provided in the first wave affected not only vaccination intentions expressed in the same survey but also actual vaccination rates recorded six months later. Our messages even increased vaccination among individuals who had initially expressed anti-vax attitudes. Overall, altruistic messages had the largest effect. The important differences in the relative effectiveness of our different treatments across countries indicate that future information campaigns should be tailored to the context to be most impactful.

Translation: People could be persuaded to get vaccinated. It is not a lost cause. But we should be mindful that different messages work best with different people and construct our communications campaigns accordingly.

One wrinkle that bears further exploration: Among those who were least likely to change their minds were the people who are generally more risk-averse. The study’s authors speculated that “these individuals may be more concerned about possible negative side effects of vaccination than about the risk of getting Covid-19.”