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Disinformation on social media is a serious issue. This study examines the effects of disinformation on COVID-19 vaccination decision-making to understand how social media users make healthcare decisions when disinformation is presented in their social media feeds. It examines trust in post owners as a moderator on the relationship between information types (i.e. disinformation and factual information) and vaccination decision-making.

This study conducts a scenario-based web survey experiment to collect extensive survey data from social media users.

This study reveals that information types differently affect social media users' COVID-19 vaccination decision-making and finds a moderating effect of trust in post owners on the relationship between information types and vaccination decision-making. For those who have a high degree of trust in post owners, the effect of information types on vaccination decision-making becomes large. In contrast, information types do not affect the decision-making of those who have a very low degree of trust in post owners. Besides, identification and compliance are found to affect trust in post owners.

This study contributes to the literature on online disinformation and individual healthcare decision-making by demonstrating the effect of disinformation on vaccination decision-making and providing empirical evidence on how trust in post owners impacts the effects of information types on vaccination decision-making. This study focuses on trust in post owners, unlike prior studies that focus on trust in information or social media platforms.

Relational autonomy proposes that persons are socially embedded, with decisions being made within social relationships. Through this theoretical lens, this article explores how the healthcare professional–patient relationship can affect pregnant women’s decisions to accept pertussis and influenza vaccines.

Hackney was chosen as the study site as it has very low vaccine uptake rates. In-depth interviews were conducted with 40 pregnant and recently pregnant women, as well as 10 healthcare professionals. Interviews explored experiences of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) health care and views towards vaccination in pregnancy. An observation of a consultation between a pregnant patient and her General Practitioners (GPs) was also conducted in order to understand how the vaccination discussion takes place.

The findings of this study indicate that advice from friends and family can greatly influence a pregnant woman’s vaccination decisions. The patient’s social context, including influences on her decisions, must be understood by healthcare professionals, so that discussions about concerns can take place. If close relationships with patients are formed, healthcare professional advice is more likely to be trusted. With support from healthcare professionals, patients feel competent, empowered to make the right decision for them, and are more likely to vaccinate.

This research will help to inform contextualised policies aimed at increasing vaccination acceptance and reducing inequality in access to vaccination during pregnancy in Hackney.

To the author’s knowledge, this chapter is the first to apply the theory of relational autonomy to views towards maternal vaccination and decision making. It provides valuable insights into how healthcare professionals’ interactions with their pregnant patients can influence vaccination acceptance. The chapter contains advice on how both healthcare professionals and policy-makers can include mothers in vaccine decision-making processes in more personalised ways, by adopting a dialogue that appreciates and understands the social processes around vaccination concerns.

Applying three psychological theories, this study aims to attempt to investigate the role of consumer psychology, specifically the factors of trust in vaccination, threat severity, fear, anxiety, risk and hygiene, and safety, on intention to resume hotel consumption. The authors also tested the mediation effect of anxiety among psychological constructs: perceived threat, fear and risk with the intention to resume hotel consumption.

Using purposive sampling, data were collected from 470 respondents from four cities in Malaysia and analysed by applying analysis of moment structures (AMOS) structural equation model technique. The respondents for this study were frequent travellers meaning the leisure tourists who at least travel twice a year or travel when getting the occasion to explore new things. In this study, an online survey was employed to ensure easy accessibility and to enhance the number of replies.

The results of this study confirmed that perceived severity, risk and fear influence travellers' anxiety. This study further confirms that trust in vaccination and hygiene & safety provided by the hotelier reduces anxiety levels. Anxiety is found one of the most important predictors of intention to resume hotel consumption, which further mediates the relationship between other psychological variables: perceived severity, risk, fear and intention to resume hotel consumption. Anxiety mediates the relationship between perceived severity, fear and intention to resume hotel consumption and partially mediates the association between risk and intention to resume hotel consumption.

This study examined three psychological theories and extended them by including the trust in vaccination and the hygiene and safety constructs. Anxiety was investigated as a mediator.

A qualitative study can help in understanding the unpolluted perspectives of key stakeholders involved in the vaccination practices and can explore vital factors that could influence vaccination-related behaviors and their utilization. This study aims to document the perceptions of caretakers, community members and healthcare service providers related to childhood vaccination practices in slums under the national immunization program (NIP) of India.

This was a qualitative community-based cross-sectional study. Focus group discussions with caretakers, community members and healthcare service providers were used to build a holistic, detailed description and analysis of the factors associated with childhood vaccination practices within its real-world context.

Lack of awareness, fear of adverse events following immunization, inappropriate timing of vaccination sessions, loss of daily earnings, migration, lack of good behavior of health staffs, shortage of logistics and vaccines, limited resources and infrastructures and high expectations of beneficiaries were some of the vital barriers impacting vaccination practices in slums.

Though this study provides significant good information on the indicators that can be considered to improve the vaccination practices in any slum settings, it has is also a limitations too due to its setting. Therefore, one needs to be cautious while generalizing these results to other settings like rural. In addition, Though we believe that these strategies could be useful in any setting, it is also important to tailor these observations them as per the need of the society and the population. Also, this is a self-reported qualitative study and therefore the perspectives reported in this study need to be taken with caution. Further, low vaccination, poor awareness, compromised healthcare services, high expectations could be considered as a stigma/fear among the responders and therefore there is always a chance of underreporting. Thus, it would be important in future to conduct a study involving a broader group of people in society and to establish factors associated with the vaccination coverage. that can help in improvement of vaccination.

Initiatives such as regular interactions at different levels, effective communication including reminders, behavior interventions, the continued supply of vaccines and logistics, additional resources for the vaccination program, incentives and recognition, extended sessions and people-friendly healthcare delivery system could be helpful to strengthen the routine vaccination practices in slums.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the identity politics associated with parental hesitancy and refusal of vaccines for their children (“vaccine hesitancy or refusal” or “VHR”). Understanding these identity politics helps policymakers to craft appropriate communication interventions that do not make the problem worse.

Social identity theory is a way of understanding how group identities develop around the lifestyle practices that often include refusal to vaccinate, and how this group identity is accentuated by conflict with the pro-vaccinating societal mainstream. This paper critically appraises existing studies of VHR to explore this groupness across many different contexts.

Groupness is evident across many different contexts. There are also key group characteristics: preference for natural birth and breastfeeding, nature as a concept and use of complementary and alternative medicine.

The paper is speculative and theoretical, using existing sources. Future studies will need to demonstrate empirically with new data. However, this theoretical approach sets up a new research agenda.

These findings can help governments and policymakers minimise social conflict that risks further polarising vaccine conversations and wedging parents on the fence.

This paper argues that the decision to vaccinate or not is an inherently social one, not a matter of pure individual rationality. This is a novel approach to engaging with what is often characterised and studied as an individual decision.

This study investigates the communication behavior of public health organizations on Twitter during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Brazil. It contributes to the understanding of the organizational framing of health communication by showcasing several instances of framing devices that borrow from (Brazilian) internet culture. The investigation of this case extends the knowledge by providing a rich description of the organizational framing of health communication to combat misinformation in a politically charged environment.

The authors collected a Twitter dataset of 77,527 tweets and analyzed a purposeful subsample of 536 tweets that contained information provided by Brazilian public health organizations about COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. The data analysis was carried out quantitatively and qualitatively by combining social media analytics techniques and frame analysis.

The analysis showed that Brazilian health organizations used several framing devices that have been identified by previous literature such as hashtags, links, emojis or images. However, the analysis also unearthed hitherto unknown visual framing devices for misinformation prevention and debunking that borrow from internet culture such as “infographics,” “pop culture references” and “internet-native symbolism.”

First, the identification of framing devices relating to internet culture add to our understanding of the so far little addressed framing of misinformation combat messages. The case of Brazilian health organizations provides a novel perspective to knowledge by offering a notion of internet-native symbols (e.g. humor, memes) and popular culture references for misinformation combat, including misinformation prevention. Second, this study introduces a frontier of political contextualization to misinformation research that does not relate to the partisanship of the spreaders but that relates to the political dilemmas of public organizations with a commitment to provide accurate information to citizens.

The findings inform decision-makers and public health organizations about framing devices that are tailored to internet-native audiences and can guide strategies to carry out information campaigns in misinformation-laden social media environments.

The findings of this case study expose the often-overlooked cultural peculiarities of framing information campaigns on social media. The report of this study from a country in the Global South helps to contrast several assumptions and strategies that are prevalent in (health) discourses in Western societies and scholarship.

This study uncovers unconventional and barely addressed framing devices of health organizations operating in Brazil, which provides a novel perspective to the body of research on misinformation. It contributes to existing knowledge about frame analysis and broadens the understanding of frame devices borrowing from internet culture. It is a call for a frontier in misinformation research that deals with internet culture as part of organizational strategies for successful misinformation combat.

This study aims to explain the factors associated with receiving a specific brand of COVID-19 vaccine within the framework of the theory of reasoned action (TRA). This study extends the TRA with the country-of-origin image (COI), brand image and electronic word of mouth variables.

This study is based on a cross-sectional survey conducted among 460 people who received the Sinofarm vaccine. Participants were selected using an online convenience sampling method. The structural equation modeling technique tests the proposed hypotheses.

The results showed that the essential factor associated with the intent to get the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is the attitude toward the Signopharm vaccine. Also, word of mouth, subjective norms and brand image are the most critical factors that play a role in forming a favorable attitude toward the Sinopharm vaccine. Finally, the country-of-origin image does not affect attitudes toward the Sinopharm vaccine.

The area of vaccine marketing has been given limited attention in academic literature. This study addresses this area with little research and is greatly attractive to many brands targeting the consumer market. The study results can form a foundation for creating the branding strategy for this product category and assessing its demand in various markets.

This study aims to explain the factors associated with receiving a specific brand of Covid-19 vaccine within the framework of the theory of reasoned action. The study extends the theory of reasoned action with the country of origin image, brand image and electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) variables.

The study is based on a cross-sectional survey conducted among 460 people who received the Sinofarm vaccine. Participants were selected using an online convenience sampling method. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique tests the proposed hypotheses.

The results showed that the essential factor associated with the intent to get the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is the attitude toward the Signopharm vaccine. Also, WOM, subjective norms and brand image are the most critical factors that play a role in forming a favorable attitude toward the Sinopharm vaccine. Finally, the country-of-origin image does not affect attitudes toward the Sinopharm vaccine.

The area of vaccine marketing has been given limited attention in academic literature. This study addresses this area with little research and is greatly attractive to many brands targeting the consumer market. The study results can form a foundation for creating the branding strategy of this product category and assessing its demand in various markets.

This case is intended to help students of business communication and public relations to trace the effects of communication by public figures and understand essential elements of designing effective communication. After working through the case and assignment questions, the students will be able to:understand the drivers of vaccine hesitancy;analyze the effects of mass communication on public sentiment, in a fast-changing public health situation; anddesign interventions to influence public awareness and action, using a simple model (5W) for mass communication.

As the vaccines first arrived after the devastating first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Indians hesitated to take the shot. Vaccine hesitancy, a worldwide phenomenon, hampered the uptake of the first Covid vaccines despite the dark clouds of the lethal disease. The case looks at the massive problem of vaccine hesitancy and how an integrated communication strategy could overcome and mitigate the challenge. The case protagonist, the leader of a communications agency, looks at the messaging, medium and platforms needed for strategic communication pitch to combat this vaccine hesitancy.

The case was designed for use in a graduate-level course in business communication. This case may be positioned toward the middle or end of the course to illustrate mass communication strategy for pressing and sensitive challenges. The case may also be used in a course on public relations, both at graduate and undergraduate levels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.