COVID-19 information exposure and vaccine hesitancy: The influence of trust in government and vaccine confidence

ABSTRACT

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread, vaccine hesitancy increasingly threats public health worldwide. Health information from traditional, online and social media may influence vaccine hesitancy. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of exposure to COVID-19 information from various media on vaccine hesitancy, as well as the mediating roles of public trust in government and vaccine confidence. With a sample of 438 online participants (mean age = 30.69 years) responding to an anonymous questionnaire, the study tested a mediation model using bias-corrected bootstrap. The results indicated that exposure to COVID-19 information from online news media and traditional media can reduce vaccine hesitancy indirectly. Whereas a positive and indirect relationship between COVID-19 information exposure on social media and vaccine hesitancy was revealed. Trust in government and vaccine confidence were found to be salient mediators between exposure to COVID-19 information from various media and vaccine hesitancy. Findings from this study offer implications for strategies to address vaccine hesitancy.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 information exposure
• vaccine hesitancy
• trust in government
• vaccine confidence
• mediation analysis

Funding

This research is supported in part by grants of University of Macau, ICI-RTO-0010-2021, CPG20XX-00035-FSS and SRG20XX-00143-FSS (ZXS PI), and a grant of Macau Higher Education Fund, HSS-UMAC-2020-02 (ZXS PI).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).