Measuring the Impact of Exposure to COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Vaccine Intent in the UK and US

Loomba, S.; de Figueiredo, A.; Piatek, S.; de Graaf, K.; Larson, H. J.

The successful development and widespread acceptance of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will be a major step in fighting the pandemic, yet obtaining high uptake will be a challenging task, worsened by online misinformation. To help inform successful COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in the UK and US, we conducted a survey to quantify how online misinformation impacts COVID-19 vaccine uptake intent and identify socio-economic groups that are most at-risk of non-vaccination and most susceptible to online misinformation. Here, we report findings from nationally representative surveys in the UK and the US conducted in September 2020. We show that recent misinformation around a COVID-19 vaccine induces a fall in vaccination intent among those who would otherwise 'definitely' vaccinate by 6.4 (3.8, 9.0) percentages points in the UK and 2.4 (0.1, 5.0) in the US, with larger decreases found in intent to vaccinate to protect others. We find evidence that socio-econo-demographic, political, and trust factors are associated with low intent to vaccinate and susceptibility to misinformation: notably, older age groups in the US are more susceptible to misinformation. We find evidence that scientific-sounding misinformation relating to COVID-19 and vaccines COVID-19 vaccine misinformation lowers vaccination intent, while corresponding factual information does not. These findings reveal how recent COVID-19 misinformation can impact vaccination rates and suggest pathways to robust messaging campaigns.