Social Identity Influences on Beliefs about Vaccines: Integrating the Health Belief and Belief Gap Models through an interdisciplinary intervention

This study was designed to test the influence of social information sources on individuals’ beliefs about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Specifically, we compared how numerous sources such as traditional media, online and offline social interaction, government agencies, religious organizations, health professionals, and activist organizations influence individuals’ attitudes toward vaccines. These sources are examined as potential cues to action in the health belief model. We establish an expanded model that explicates the pathway from social identity to information exposure that may prompt negative attitudes about vaccines. This understanding of how negative vaccine attitudes are developed and reinforced impacts the creation of effective public health campaigns to correct misinformation about vaccines.

To test our model, survey data was collected from a national population sample, and subjects completed an online questionnaire. Along with measuring myriad attitudes about vaccines (belief in a link to autism, belief in their efficacy, concerns about pharmaceutical companies’ motives, understanding of herd immunity, etc.), we measured the use of many kinds of mediated and unmediated information sources, and the social identities that may be related to that usage. Through this identity-information interaction, this study identified sites of exposure and motives for belief of misinformation, as well as the mechanisms through which misinformation may be socially reinforced. Findings showcased directions for interdisciplinary intervention through venues such as Public Health Social Work.