COVID-19 Messaging for Vaccination

Summary

This study will distribute videos of health professionals encouraging Covid-19 vaccination to a large sample of Facebook users, and will test the most effective ways to maximize diffusion of this vaccine-related content to increase vaccination rates. The study sample will be U.S. states where vaccination rates remained low in fall 2021. The experimental design is an RCT with 4 groups, randomized at the county level: 1) a control group which receives no intervention, 2) a treatment group in which Facebook users receive ads which include videos of health professionals telling them to get vaccinated, 3) a treatment group in which Facebook users receive ads which include videos of health professionals encouraging them to help their friends to get vaccinated, and 4) a treatment group in which Facebook users receive ads which include videos of health professionals encouraging them to get their most influential friends to help their friends get vaccinated. In treatments 3 and 4, participants will have the option to sign up to be a "vaccine ambassador," in which case they will get notifications when the study team posts new vaccine-related content, and will receive reminders about encouraging their friends to be vaccinated. The vaccine ambassadors will also be entered into a lottery to win prizes. The study team is building a website to host the videos of health professionals which answer common questions about Covid-19 vaccination. The investigators will measure engagement with the vaccine-related content as well as assess effects on vaccination rates at the county level.

Conditions

• Vaccination Refusal
• COVID-19 Pandemic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Doctor Videos

Receive ads on Facebook or through our website with videos in which health professionals tell people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The health professionals answer common questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, such as how mRNA vaccines work, and what types of side effects to expect.

BEHAVIORAL

Sharing Videos

Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

BEHAVIORAL

Sharing Videos (Influencers)

Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to get their most influential friends to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.

BEHAVIORAL

Vaccine Ambassador

Adults in participating geographic areas can sign up to be a "vaccine ambassador" on a website that the study team has built. The study team will send updates to vaccine ambassadors when new content has been posted to the website (e.g. a new video) and/or to remind the vaccine ambassadors to encourage their friends to get vaccinated. The study team will incentivize vaccine ambassadors by entering participating ambassadors into a lottery for a prize.

BEHAVIORAL

Video framing

The same videos will be displayed using two different frames: a "myth" frame and a "fact" frame. Visitors to the vaccine content website will randomly receive one framing of each video.

BEHAVIORAL

Video order

The order in which videos appear on the vaccine content website will be randomized.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Facebook, Inc.

  collaborator OTHER

• Code3

  collaborator INDUSTRY

• Stanford University

  collaborator OTHER

• Harvard University

  collaborator OTHER

• Yale University

  collaborator OTHER

• Johns Hopkins University

  collaborator OTHER

• Massachusetts General Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich

  collaborator OTHER

• National Institutes of Health (NIH)

  collaborator NIH

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Esther Duflo, PhD · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Ben Olken, PhD · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Abhijit Banerjee, PhD · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD · Harvard Kennedy School

• Arun Chandrasekhar, PhD · Stanford University

• Emily Breza, PhD · Harvard University

• Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, PhD · Yale University

• Emily Hoppe, PhD Student · Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

• Pierre-Luc Vautrey, PhD Student · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Lisa Ho, PhD Student · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Lucy Ogbu-Nwobodo, MD · MGH/McLean Harvard Psychiatry Program

• Erica Warner, ScD, MPH · Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital

• Carlos Torres, MD · Massachusetts General Hospital

• Fatima Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA · Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital

• Sarah Eichmeyer, PhD · Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-12-22

Primary Completion

2022-01-27

Completion

2022-01-27

Countries

• United States

Study Locations