Analysis · Education
Feeling Overwhelmed by Information Did Not Mean Rejecting Vaccines
By AWEI · AI-compiled · Published · Analysis prepared · 1 source · doi.org
Feeling swamped by vaccine information and believing false claims pointed in opposite directions in one international survey. People reporting more information overload were more willing to accept COVID-19 vaccination and more likely to report having received it. Belief in misinformation was associated with lower willingness and uptake.
Xi Chen, Woohyung Lee and Fen Lin published the study in 2022, using an online survey conducted in June 2021. Their analysis included 6,193 adults with complete responses from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the UK and the US. Recruitment used quotas to match local demographic and geographical characteristics.
The researchers measured overload with two questions about excessive information and distraction. Separately, they assessed agreement with three false vaccine claims, trust in institutions, vaccination willingness and whether respondents had received at least one dose. Regression models adjusted for background characteristics including age, education, income and health status. This separation matters: feeling overwhelmed was not treated as equivalent to accepting misinformation.
Trust also had distinct associations. Greater trust in government and healthcare professionals was associated with higher willingness and uptake. The negative association between misinformation belief and vaccination was weaker among people reporting greater government or NGO trust. Yet greater trust in healthcare professionals did not show that same pattern: the negative association with uptake was stronger in that group.
These were observations from a single survey, not effects demonstrated by an experiment. The study cannot establish whether overload or trust changed vaccination decisions. The authors suggested that information exposure might increase worry about infection, but did not establish that explanation. Measures relied on self-reports, and the six wealthy settings limit generalization.
For evaluating communication claims, the useful lesson is to distinguish information volume, belief and trust in particular institutions. This study supports measuring them separately; it does not prove that flooding audiences with information or increasing institutional trust will change their behavior.
Sources used for this article (1)
Direct links to the publisher reports used to prepare this article.
- Source 1
- Infodemic, Institutional Trust, and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Cross-National Survey Xi Chen, Woohyung Lee, Fen Lin
