 • It is valuable to educate the public through traditional media sources and minimize exposure to vaccine misinformation on social media.


Implication of Study Results


 •Random sample of 2500 US adults from a national panel

 •Vaccination misinformation measured two times over a period of six months in 2019

 • Media preference was self reported

 •Self reported exposure to MMR vaccination content on traditional media or social media


Methods

 • Those who reported low trust in medical authorities were more likely to believe in vaccine misinformation. 


Relationship between trust in medical authorities and belief in vaccine misinformation

 • Over a period of time, people who were exposed to an increased amount of content about (MMR) vaccine on social media were more likely to have grown more misinformed than those who received content about the MMR vaccine through traditional media.


Traditional media vs social media and vaccine misinformation

 (out of nearly 2500 participants in the survey)

• 18% believe that vaccines cause autism.

 • 15% agree that vaccines are full of toxins.

 • 20% agree that parents don’t need to rely on the official CDC vaccine schedule to get their children vaccinated .

 • 19% agree that it is better to develop immunity by getting the disease than by vaccination.



University of California, Berkeley

 • Surveys conducted in the US during a measles outbreak imply that traditional media users are less likely to be misinformed about vaccines than social media users. 

 • “ consequential number” of US adults are misinformed about vaccines.

 • Results also show that distrust of medical authorities is positively related to vaccine misinformation.

 • Consistent results across varied demographic groups and political beliefs.

 • False beliefs were highly persistent over a five months period.


Results (MMR Vaccine Misinformation)

Stecula, Dominik Andrzej, et al. “How Trust in Experts and Media Use Affect Acceptance of Common Anti-Vaccination Claims: HKS Misinformation Review.” Misinformation Review, 29 Jan. 2021, https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/users-of-social-media-more-likely-to-be-misinformed-about-vaccines/. 

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