Protecting Against HIV Vaccine Misinformation With Adolescent Girls and Young Women in South Africa

Summary

Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) between the ages of 15-29 years continue to bear the brunt of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections in South Africa despite progress recorded in prevention and treatment programmes. The ongoing susceptibility of young women to HIV infection and the sub-optimal uptake of prevention options such as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) that are highly effective creates a need for an HIV vaccine to benefit populations at substantial risk of HIV infection. However, lessons from previous vaccine studies and the recent COVID-19 vaccine have highlighted significant barriers to vaccine uptake, such as widespread misinformation and vaccine hesitancy. These challenges threaten the successful implementation of a future HIV vaccine. Building on these insights, this study will utilise psychological inoculation theory to develop and evaluate HIV vaccine messages among adolescent girls and young women. Primary objective: To compare changes in intentions to receive HIV vaccine following misinformation exposure in groups with and without psychological inoculation and behavioural economics boost.

Secondary objectives: (1) To compare believability and persuasiveness of misinformation claims and motivational threat associated with misinformation in groups with and without psychological inoculation and behavioural economics boost. (2) To explore subgroup effects by relevant sociodemographic and behavioural factors including HIV risk, PrEP history, COVID-19 vaccine history, general vaccine hesitancy, and information avoidance. The investigators will conduct a two-arm randomized controlled trial of 2-3 inoculation messages that address emerging myths and misinformation about the HIV vaccine in South Africa. Participants will be randomly assigned to a control group or an intervention arm: enhanced inoculation message with insights from behavioural economics.

Conditions

• Misinformation
• HIV Vaccine

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Enhanced inoculation message

Participants enrolled in the enhanced inoculation message arm will receive messages that warn them about impending HIV vaccine misinformation and explains why those claims are false or misleading, the messages will be enhanced with insights from behavioural economics see Appendix 5: "Inoculation message with a BE boost" for an example of the inoculation message. As part of the behavioural economics boost, participants may choose to receive a small token (e.g., sticker, badge, bracelet) with a message promoting vaccination as a consistency and commitment prime.

BEHAVIORAL

Nutrition information

Participants enrolled in the control group will receive unrelated information on diabetes and nutrition topics of the same length as the inoculation messages. Please see Appendix 6 for an example of how this message will be structured. This will make the control group an attention control group and ensure that findings are not confounded by the intervention group spending more time and attentional resources on participation in the study.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cape Town

  collaborator OTHER

• Boston University

  collaborator OTHER

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

  collaborator NIH

• Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office, University of the Witwatersrand

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Pennsylvania

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

29 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-07-24

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2027-06-30

Countries

• South Africa

Study Locations