The doctor knows or the evidence shows: An online survey experiment testing the effects of source trust, pro-vaccine evidence, and dual-processing in expert messages recommending child COVID-19 vaccination to parents.

ABSTRACT: Increasing child vaccination rates is a critical step toward mitigating the spread of COVID-19. Both distrust in expert sources and concern about the safety and efficacy of vaccines may contribute to parent vaccine hesitancy. The present study is the first to test the effectiveness of building trust and providing evidence supporting child COVID-19 vaccines in recommendation messages for parents. Based on dual-processing theories, emphasis on source trustworthiness and pro-vaccine evidence may each be particularly effective when the other is not present. It was hypothesized that these two approaches would have main and interaction effects on perceived message effectiveness and pro-vaccine beliefs. A between-subjects 2 (trust-building appeal vs. no trust-building appeal) X 2 (pro-vaccine evi

SUBMITTER: Kikut AI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10361505 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature