RAPID: The Prevalence and Causes of Conspiracy Beliefs about Disease Outbreaks

公共卫生取决于广泛获得准确的科学信息。因此，阴谋论和其他关于健康、医学和科学的错误信息的扩散给公共卫生官员带来了重大挑战。这些理论经常坚持，尽管有明确的相反证据，甚至可以在公共话语和社交网络中传播时获得可信度。目前，一套关于寨卡病毒持续流行的危险阴谋论正在疫情中心巴西流传。谣言和未经证实的报道将蚊子传播的疾病和由此导致的小头症激增归咎于转基因蚊子、杀幼虫剂和产前疫苗。这些阴谋论的传播可能会威胁到世界各地预防寨卡病毒的公共卫生努力，包括美国宣布进入公共卫生紧急状态的波多黎各和南佛罗里达州。具体来说，这些说法的传播可能会阻止人们保护自己免受寨卡病毒的侵害；破坏争取公众帮助预防疾病传播的努力；并减少公共卫生官员对疫情应对的支持。该项目将研究人们普遍相信有关寨卡病毒的阴谋论，人们在什么情况下最容易受到这些说法的影响，以及纠正信息在揭穿这些说法方面的有效性。该项目包括在巴西进行一项具有全国代表性的调查，以衡量谁相信这些阴谋论，并对巴西人的选择样本进行调查实验，以测试控制感如何影响人们对阴谋论和纠正信息的接受程度。第一项研究包括在巴西进行面对面调查的一个模块。这些数据使研究小组能够详细分析巴西寨卡病毒阴谋论的流行情况，以及这些信念与人口统计、疾病发病率、寨卡病毒暴露和政治态度等因素的关系。研究小组还调查了阴谋信念与支持阻止疾病传播的公共卫生措施以及受访者遵循预防建议的意图之间的关系。第二项研究测试了这样一种说法，即缺乏控制的感觉使人们更容易受到阴谋论的影响——这一理论与理解有关疾病爆发的阴谋论特别相关。缺乏控制的感觉可能会促使人们相信有关寨卡病毒的阴谋论，并降低纠正信息的有效性。该研究使用来自巴西一家供应商的大量在线参与者样本来评估这一预测。

Public health depends on the widespread availability of accurate scientific information. The proliferation of conspiracy theories and other misinformation about health, medicine, and science have therefore created a significant challenge for public health officials. These theories frequently persist despite clear evidence to the contrary and can even gain credibility as they circulate in public discourse and through social networks. Right now, a dangerous set of conspiracy theories about the ongoing Zika epidemic are circulating in Brazil, the center of the outbreak. Rumors and unsupported reports have blamed the mosquito-borne disease and the resulting surge in microcephaly on genetically modified mosquitoes, on larvicides, and on prenatal vaccines. The spread of these conspiracy theories could threaten public health efforts to prevent Zika across the world, including in Puerto Rico, where the U.S. has declared a public health emergency, and South Florida. Specifically, the dissemination of these claims threatens to dissuade people from protecting themselves against Zika; undermine efforts to enlist the public's help in preventing the spread of the disease; and reduce support for responses to the outbreak by public health officials. This project will study the prevalence of belief in conspiracy theories about Zika, the conditions under which people are most vulnerable to these claims, and the effectiveness of corrective information in debunking them. The project consists of a nationally representative survey in Brazil measuring who believes in these conspiracy theories and a survey experiment with an opt-in sample of Brazilians testing how feelings of control affect people's receptiveness to conspiracy theories and to corrective information. The first study consists of a module on a face-to-face survey in Brazil. These data allow the research team to conduct a detailed analysis of the prevalence of Zika conspiracy beliefs in Brazil and how those beliefs relate to factors such as demographics, disease incidence, Zika exposure, and political attitudes. The research team also examines how conspiracy beliefs relate to support for public health measures to stop the spread of the disease and respondents' intention to follow prevention recommendations. The second study tests the claim that feelings of a lack of control make people more vulnerable to conspiracy beliefs -- a theory that is especially relevant to understanding conspiracy theories about disease outbreaks. Feelings of a lack of control may facilitate belief in conspiracy theories about Zika and reduce the effectiveness of corrective information. The research evaluates this prediction using a large sample of online participants from a vendor that offers a diverse sample in Brazil.