Assessing the Effectiveness of Common Health Messaging Tactics on Self-Reported and Validated Vaccine Uptake: A Multi-Method Approach.

这项研究确定了地方、州和联邦卫生机构用来鼓励接种疫苗的消息传递策略，并严格评估了这些努力的成功程度，以便开发和实施一系列疫苗宣传沟通的“最佳实践”。与之前的研究相比，该项目提供了三个关键进步，将改善美国的疫苗传播。首先，研究人员在社交媒体上建立了联邦和州公共卫生机构疫苗交流的首个公共数据库。其次，基于从数据库中收集的见解，研究人员评估了公共卫生机构发布的数百条疫苗宣传信息对美国人疫苗态度和行为的有效性。第三，也是可以说是最重要的一点，该项目通过开展大规模的在线疫苗传播活动，并评估其对疫苗接种的影响，部署了被认为是大规模实验工作中最有希望的信息(这是大多数学术研究很少采取的步骤)。该项目推进了同行评审的疫苗推广跨学科工作，并通过制定有效疫苗交流的“最佳做法”，帮助卫生机构更好地鼓励接种疫苗。该项目利用科学传播学的见解，建立一个多阶段、多方法和多学科的研究议程，旨在严格确定(1)卫生机构过去如何努力鼓励接种三种疫苗(新冠肺炎、季节性流感和破伤风)，以及(2)这些努力的成功程度。这项研究通过使用研究团队开发的“大数据”内容分析程序来实现第一个目标，以确定过去鼓励联邦和地方卫生机构接种疫苗的努力中存在的主题和消息设计元素。然后，该项目通过民意调查中嵌入的一系列随机对照试验来评估过去疫苗推广工作的有效性，其中包括(A)嵌入能够评估数百种不同消息传递策略有效性的纵向调查中的“试点阶段”联合实验研究，(B)嵌入具有全国代表性的横断面研究中的“验证阶段”析因实验，以测试在试点阶段确定的最有希望的干预措施的有效性，以及(C)与市场研究机构合作进行的“实施阶段”现场实验，该实验管理我们在搜索引擎平台上的“确认阶段”中确定的最有效的治疗方法。在这项研究的现场实验阶段，研究人员根据验证的疫苗接种数据和来自州一级意见调查的个人疫苗接种自我报告来评估疫苗推广信息的效果，这些意见调查部署在随机选择的一组治疗邮政编码内，在接受治疗的县内，以及在具有代表性的美国五个州中。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research identifies the messaging tactics that local, state, and federal health agencies employ to encourage vaccine uptake, and rigorously evaluate the degree to which those efforts are successful, in order to develop and implement a series of “best practices” for vaccine promotion communication. The project offers three key advancements over previous research that will improve vaccine communication in the United States. First, the researchers build a first-of-its-kind public database of federal and state public health agency vaccine communications on social media. Second, based on insights gleaned from the database, the researchers evaluate the efficacy of hundreds of vaccine promotion messages deployed by public health agencies on Americans’ vaccine attitudes and behaviors. Third, and arguably most importantly, this project deploys the messages deemed most promising in the experimental work at scale (a step rarely taken in most academic research) by conducting a large, online vaccine communication campaign and assessing its impact on vaccine uptake. This project advances peer reviewed interdisciplinary work on vaccine promotion, and helps health agencies better encourage vaccine uptake through the development of “best practices” for effective vaccine communication. This project leverages insights from the science of science communication to build a multi-stage, multi-method, and multidisciplinary research agenda aimed at rigorously identifying (1) how health agencies have made an effort to encourage vaccine uptake for three vaccines (COVID-19, seasonal influenza, and tetanus) in the past, and (2) the degree to which those efforts are successful. The research accomplishes the first objective by employing “big data” content analytic procedures developed by the research team to identify themes and message design elements present in past efforts to encourage vaccine uptake from federal and local health agencies. The project then assesses the effectiveness of past vaccine promotion efforts via a series of randomized controlled trials embedded in public opinion surveys; including (a) a “pilot phase” conjoint experimental study embedded in a longitudinal survey capable of assessing the effectiveness of several hundred different messaging strategies, (b) a “confirmatory phase” factorial experiment – embedded in a nationally representative cross-sectional study – testing the effectiveness of the most promising interventions identified in the pilot phase, and (c) an “implementation phase” field experiment – conducted in partnership with market research agencies – that administers our most effective treatments identified in our “confirmatory phase” on search engine platforms. In the study’s field experimental phase, the researchers evaluate the effect of vaccine promotion messages on both verified vaccine uptake data and individual vaccine uptake self-reports from state-level opinion surveys deployed across a randomly selected set of treatment zip codes, within treated counties, and among a representative sample of five U.S. states.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.