Correcting myths about flu vaccines may not be the most effective approach to promoting immunisation among vaccine skeptics, a new study has found.
Researchers found that debunking the myth that the seasonal influenza vaccine can give you the flu actually
reduced intent to vaccinate among people who are most concerned about vaccine side effects.
The study was conducted with a nationally representative sample of adults in the US collected as part of the 2012
Cooperative Congressional Election Survey.
Respondents were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a control condition in which no additional
information about the flu or flu vaccines; a danger condition that presented information about the health risks posed by the
flu; and a correction condition that informed respondents that they cannot contract the flu from the flu shot or live virus
nasal spray.
Both interventions were adapted nearly verbatim from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention materials. The
researchers then compared the beliefs and intended behaviours of respondents after exposure to these messages.
More than four in ten Americans (43 per cent) endorsed the myth that the flu vaccine can give you the flu, saying it
is either “somewhat” or “very accurate.”
Respondents who received corrective information that the flu vaccine cannot give you the flu were less likely to report
believing in this misperception or to say that the flu vaccine is unsafe.
However, providing this corrective information also reduced the self-reported likelihood of getting a flu vaccine
among respondents with high levels of concern about vaccine side effects.
This information had no significant effect on intention to vaccinate among respondents with low concern about side
effects.
Providing information about the dangers of the flu had no effect on respondent beliefs about vaccine safety or their
self-reported intention to vaccinate.
“Our findings suggest that corrective information can successfully reduce false beliefs about vaccines,” said
Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor at Dartmouth College.
“However, that corrective information may unfortunately cause people with fears about side effects to bring those
other concerns to mind and thereby reduce their intention to vaccinate.
“We need to learn how to most effectively promote immunisation. Directly correcting vaccine myths may not be the
most effective approach,” said Nyhan who co-authored the study with Jason Reifler, a senior lecturer of politics at the
University of Exeter.
The study appears in the journal Vaccine.
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