The sources and correlates of exposure to vaccine-related (mis)information online.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To assess the quantity and type of vaccine-related information Americans consume online and its relationship to social media use and attitudes toward vaccines.

Methods

Analysis of individual-level web browsing data linked with survey responses from representative samples of Americans collected between October 2016 and February 2019.

Results

We estimate that approximately 84% of Americans visit a vaccine-related webpage each year. Encounters with vaccine-skeptical content are less frequent; they make up only 7.5% of vaccine-related pageviews and are encountered by only 18.5% of people annually. However, these pages are more likely to be published by untrustworthy sources. Moreover, skeptical content exposure is more common among people with less favorable va

SUBMITTER: Guess AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7578671 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature