Research shows that policymakers who want to increase Covid vaccination rates should focus on communicating the risks of not getting vaccinated.
Researchers in China have found that this approach, known as the “loss frame strategy,” is more persuasive in increasing people’s willingness to get vaccinated than focusing on the benefits to oneself or to others.
According to the team, this could be because the emphasis on profit is often beneficial when people think certain behavior is safe.
“Vaccines can be considered risky, given their potential side effects, despite their preventive features,” they write. “Therefore, the loss frame strategy has advantages over gain frames in promoting vaccination.”
Writing in the Journal of Public HealthIn the study, the researchers report how they randomly divided 1,085 participants into four groups of similar size. The participants were all 18 years or older and had not yet had all their Covid shots.
All participants were given information about the prevalence and mortality rate of Covid. However, while one group received no further information, the others received additional messages, explaining the individual benefits of vaccination, the benefits for others, or the risks of not vaccinating.
Participants were asked to indicate on a five-point scale whether they thought vaccination was effective in preventing Covid infection. They were also asked to indicate on a five-point scale to what extent they were willing to be vaccinated.
The results showed that, overall, greater perceptions of vaccine effectiveness were associated with greater willingness to get vaccinated. The team also found that groups that received additional messages were more willing to get vaccinated than those that did not.
However, the greatest willingness was seen among participants who were told about the potential dangers of not getting a Covid shot, such as a greater chance of developing severe Covid symptoms. In fact, compared to the group that did not receive any additional messaging, participants in this group were 2.79 times more willing to get vaccinated.
Further analysis showed that the three types of additional messages could strengthen the positive association between perceived vaccine effectiveness and willingness to get vaccinated.
Dr Simon Williams, a behavioural scientist and public health researcher at Swansea University, said the results were consistent with other studies showing that the perceived effectiveness of a vaccine influenced how willing people were to take it. He said this was highly relevant to Covid vaccines, as many countries had struggled to communicate that boosters were still effective and important for certain groups.
But, he said, while the new work suggested that framing vaccine messages in terms of what you would lose by not getting vaccinated was more effective than framing them in terms of potential gain, it wasn’t clear whether the same results would be found in other countries. Some studies have come to different conclusions.
“A number of studies have shown that loss messages work better for disease ‘detection’ messages, such as ‘get screened’ to detect diseases early,” he said. “Whereas ‘gain’ messages work better for prevention behaviors, such as ‘get vaccinated’ or ‘eat healthy’ to avoid diseases.”