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

本研究确定了地方、州和联邦卫生机构为鼓励疫苗接种而采用的信息策略，并严格评估了这些努力的成功程度，以制定和实施一系列疫苗推广传播的“最佳实践”。该项目提供了三个关键的进步，比以前的研究，将改善疫苗在美国的传播。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通信的首个公共数据库。其次，根据从数据库中收集到的信息，研究人员评估了公共卫生机构部署的数百种疫苗宣传信息对美国人疫苗态度和行为的有效性。第三，可以说是最重要的，该项目通过开展大规模的在线疫苗宣传活动并评估其对疫苗接种的影响，在大规模实验工作中部署了被认为最有希望的信息（这在大多数学术研究中很少采取）。该项目推进了关于疫苗推广的同行评审跨学科工作，并帮助卫生机构通过制定有效疫苗传播的“最佳做法”，更好地鼓励疫苗接种。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三种疫苗（COVID-19、季节性流感和破伤风）的疫苗接种，以及（2）这些努力的成功程度。该研究通过采用研究团队开发的“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信息设计元素。然后，该项目通过一系列嵌入民意调查的随机对照试验，评估过去疫苗推广工作的有效性;包括（a）嵌入能够评估几百种不同消息传递策略的有效性的纵向调查中的“试验阶段”联合实验研究，（B）“验证阶段”析因实验-在一项全国代表性的横断面研究中进行-检验试验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”实地试验，在搜索引擎平台上实施我们在“确认阶段”确定的最有效的治疗方法。在该研究的现场实验阶段，研究人员评估了疫苗推广信息对经验证的疫苗摄取数据和来自州一级民意调查的个人疫苗摄取自我报告的影响，这些民意调查部署在一组随机选择的治疗邮政编码中，在治疗县内，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.