Scenario-based messages on social media motivate COVID-19 information seeking

Communicating information about health risks empowers individuals to make informed decisions. To identify effective communication strategies, we manipulated the specificity, self-relevance, and emotional framing of messages designed to motivate information seeking about COVID-19 exposure risk. In Study 1 (N = 221,829), we conducted a large-scale social media field study. Using Facebook advertisements, we targeted users by age and political attitudes. Episodic specificity drove engagement: Advertisements that contextualized risk in specific scenarios produced the highest click-through rates, across all demographic groups. In Study 2, we replicated and extended our findings in an online experiment (N = 4,233). Message specificity (but not self-relevance or emotional valence) drove interest in learning about COVID-19 risks. Across both studies, we found that older adults and liberals were more interested in learning about COVID-19 risks. However, message specificity increased engagement across demographic groups. Overall, evoking specific scenarios motivated information seeking about COVID-19, facilitating risk communication to a broad audience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved) Impact Statement Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals have weighed risks and benefits when making choices about everyday activities. Learning about the current local risk of COVID-19 exposure is important for making informed decisions. Social media can be a platform for rapidly disseminating health information, but it can also contribute to misinformation and confirmation bias. Here, we tested strategies for risk communication on social media, targeting users by age and political attitudes. In Study 1, we used Facebook advertisements to motivate users to learn about COVID-19 exposure risk. Users who clicked on an ad were directed to interactive risk assessment tools on a public website. We varied the specificity of the advertisements by describing national ("in the United States"), local ("in your area"), or scenario ("at your favorite restaurant") risks. We also manipulated emotional valence by using positive ("stay safe and healthy") or negative ("avoid danger and illness") language. Specificity drove engagement: In all demographic groups, users were the most likely to click on scenario ads. In Study 2, we replicated and extended our findings in a sample of paid participants. In addition to varying the specificity and valence of the ads, we manipulated self-relevance (e.g., "a restaurant" vs. "your favorite restaurant") and tested an alternative scenario (grocery store instead of restaurant). Consistent with Study 1, specificity (but not valence or self-relevance) drove interest in learning about COVID-19 risk. In both studies, we also found that older adults and liberals were more interested in COVID-19 information, whereas conservatives were less engaged and more likely to feel angry or disgusted. However, scenario ads reliably increased engagement across demographic groups. Overall, we found that evoking specific scenarios motivated information seeking about COVID-19 risks. Health messages with improved specificity can be readily disseminated on social media, reaching a broad audience to support public health goals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Reasons for Receiving or Not Receiving Bivalent COVID-19 Booster Vaccinations Among Adults - United States, November 1-December 10, 2022.

Bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccines, developed to protect against both ancestral and Omicron BA.4/BA.5 variants, are recommended to increase protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe disease* (1,2). However, relatively few eligible U.S. adults have received a bivalent booster dose (3), and reasons for low coverage are unclear. An opt-in Internet survey of 1,200 COVID-19-vaccinated U.S. adults was conducted to assess reasons for receiving or not receiving a bivalent booster dose. Participants could select multiple reasons from a list of suggested reasons to report why they had or had not received a bivalent booster dose. The most common reasons cited for not receiving the bivalent booster dose were lack of awareness of eligibility for vaccination (23.2%) or of vaccine availability (19.3%), and perceived immunity against infection (18.9%). After viewing information about eligibility and availability, 67.8% of participants who had not received the bivalent booster dose indicated that they planned to do so; in a follow-up survey 1 month later, 28.6% of these participants reported having received the dose. Among those who had planned to receive the booster dose but had not yet done so, 82.6% still intended to do so. Participants who had still not received the booster dose most commonly reported being too busy to get vaccinated (35.6%). To help increase bivalent booster dose coverage, health care and public health professionals should use evidence-based strategies to convey information about booster vaccination recommendations and waning immunity (4), while also working to increase convenient access.

Imagining a Personalized Scenario Selectively Increases Perceived Risk of Viral Transmission for Older Adults

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a serious and prolonged public-health emergency. Older adults have been at substantially greater risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and death due to COVID-19;as of February 2021, over 81% of COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S. occurred for people over the age of 651,2. Converging evidence from around the world suggests that age is the greatest risk factor for severe COVID-19 illness and for the experience of adverse health outcomes3,4. Therefore, effectively communicating health-related risk information requires tailoring interventions to older adults’ needs5. Using a novel informational intervention with a nationally-representative sample of 546 U.S. residents, we found that older adults reported increased perceived risk of COVID-19 transmission after imagining a personalized scenario with social consequences. Although older adults tended to forget numerical information over time, the personalized simulations elicited increases in perceived risk that persisted over a 1–3 week delay. Overall, our results bear broad implications for communicating information about health risks to older adults, and they suggest new strategies to combat annual influenza outbreaks.

Pairing facts with imagined consequences improves pandemic-related risk perception.

The COVID-19 pandemic reached staggering new peaks during a global resurgence more than a year after the crisis began. Although public health guidelines initially helped to slow the spread of disease, widespread pandemic fatigue and prolonged harm to financial stability and mental well-being contributed to this resurgence. In the late stage of the pandemic, it became clear that new interventions were needed to support long-term behavior change. Here, we examined subjective perceived risk about COVID-19 and the relationship between perceived risk and engagement in risky behaviors. In study 1 (n = 303), we found that subjective perceived risk was likely inaccurate but predicted compliance with public health guidelines. In study 2 (n = 735), we developed a multifaceted intervention designed to realign perceived risk with actual risk. Participants completed an episodic simulation task; we expected that imagining a COVID-related scenario would increase the salience of risk information and enhance behavior change. Immediately following the episodic simulation, participants completed a risk estimation task with individualized feedback about local viral prevalence. We found that information prediction error, a measure of surprise, drove beneficial change in perceived risk and willingness to engage in risky activities. Imagining a COVID-related scenario beforehand enhanced the effect of prediction error on learning. Importantly, our intervention produced lasting effects that persisted after a 1- to 3-wk delay. Overall, we describe a fast and feasible online intervention that effectively changed beliefs and intentions about risky behaviors.