SOUTH KINGSTOWN – As COVID-19 continues to surge across the country, with Rhode Island recording a record number of new single-day cases earlier this week, public health experts continue to urge vaccination to prevent infection and severe illness.
But nearly one-quarter of Rhode Islanders, and 38% of Americans, aren’t fully vaccinated, and some have yet to receive a single dose.
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To counter this vaccine hesitancy, University of Rhode Island researcher Mehdi Hossain, an assistance professor of marketing, conducted a study on the psychological factors that lead to vaccine hesitancy and how framing communications can influence this hesitation.
In his research, Hossain found that marketing communications that emphasize vaccination as a means of hope for the future can help sway those who are vaccine hesitant into getting a shot.
This framing differs from messaging popularly used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hossain said, which emphasizes vaccination as a means of protection.
“In our model, we find that hope has the strongest link with increased efficacy perception,” Hossain said in a statement. “We find that when you give people hope, their level of suspicion about the efficacy of the vaccine reduces.
“Hope motivates people to do better or see a better future,” he added. “When you have that kind of mindset, you can see taking the vaccine as a vehicle for you to transfer to that better future.”
The study also found that loneliness and social disconnection play a significant role in fueling vaccine hesitancy.
The study, conducted over four weeks between January and February 2021, assigned 420 participants to three groups, with each group receiving different versions of the same educational materials on pandemic-related behavior.
One group received communications centered on getting vaccinated for protection; another for situational control; and a third group received materials focused on hope.
The hope framing was “significantly more effective than the other two,” Hossain said.
“If this framing is used and delivered at a larger scale, we are cautiously optimistic that it will have a broader impact in reducing hesitancy by influencing people at a psychological level,” he said.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Voghel@PBN.com.
