Tracking the Influence of Misinformation on Elderly People’s Perceptions and Intention to Accept COVID-19 Vaccines

ABSTRACT

In this study, we surveyed low-income elderly people in Hong Kong and their family or friends to test a dual-path model with which we identified how misinformation in the media reached elderly people and how the elderly people’s perception and acceptance of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines were influenced. The findings suggest that elderly people’s own exposure to erroneous information regarding vaccines and COVID-19 in the media was positively associated with their misperceptions. In addition, their family or friends, who also received misinformation from the media, were found to relay the misleading or erroneous information to the elderly people, indicating a two-step flow of media influence. While previous studies have predominantly focused on the direct influence of misinformation in the media, our study suggests that social influence can also mediate the influence of misinformation in the media and negatively impacts elderly people’s perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor Jonathan Zhu for his help and advices for data analyses in this study.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request to the first author.

Notes

1. According to CDC (2020a, 2020b), item (a) is erroneous as vaccines are in general quite effective; item (b) is ambivalent and too simplified as people get sick after getting vaccinated for various reasons; for example, people may have contracted infectious diseases immediately before getting vaccinated; item (c) is misleading as getting vaccinated normally does not lead to greater risks to personal health than getting infected with infectious diseases; item (d) is exaggerating and too simplified as only very few people experience severe allergic reactions to vaccines, such as high fever or death, and the reasons are usually quite complicated. However, we acknowledge that people who take an anti-vaccination stand might not consider these four items misleading or erroneous. The purpose of this study is not to argue whether these anti-vaccination messages are considered misleading or erroneous. Instead, we aim to track how these anti-vaccination messages spread and influence elderly people’s perceptions and their intention to accept COVID-19 vaccines.

Additional information

Funding

This study is partially funded by the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (Project Number: 2020.A1.093.20A) from the Policy Innovation and Co-ordination Office of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as well as a grant awarded by City University of Hong Kong (#9678207).