"Sounds like a Cheesy Radio Ad": Using User Perspectives for Enhancing Digital COVID Vaccine Communication Strategies for Public Health Agencies

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) and other public health agencies have identified vaccine hesitancy as a critical challenge in reducing future cases and deaths from COVID-19. The current study has investigated ways to improve a widely circulated vaccine infographic video by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After gathering qualitative feedback on properties of the message that could be improved (from online crowdworkers), we conducted a randomized experiment to investigate different combinations of these attributes. Our results suggest participants were more likely to share the video which was: (1) played more slowly; (2) had a female speaker; (3) did not have background music. The study demonstrates potential of user studies for improving existing communication strategies for encouraging vaccinations and alleviating vaccine hesitancy on social media platforms. Our contribution also includes a repository of messages to encourage vaccination, generated by online crowdworkers, which could be utilized by future studies.