Addressing message fatigue for encouraging COVID-19 vaccination

ABSTRACT

During the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, health communication researchers and practitioners should be aware of the unintended effects of message fatigue. Message fatigue is a motivational state caused by repeated and prolonged exposure to similar health-related messages that induces resistance to health behaviors. Messages encouraging COVID-19 vaccination tend to focus on scientific evidence and efficacy information. However, prolonged exposure to similarly framed repeated pro-COVID-19 vaccination messages may cause message fatigue, generate psychological reactance, and lead to ineffective persuasive outcomes. Scholars of message fatigue argue that health communication practitioners should select a less common frame to reduce fatigue responses and increase favorable attitudes toward message recommendations. Entering the second year since COVID-19 vaccination has begun, to reduce message fatigue, future pro-COVID-19 vaccination communication should increase the diversity of messages different than the frequently used types. This opinion piece proposes alternative dissemination of cognitive, affective, narrative, and non-narrative pro-COVID-19 vaccination messages.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• vaccination
• vaccine
• vaccine hesitancy
• message fatigue
• health communication

Acknowledgements

Tsuyoshi Okuhara: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Hiroko Okada: Writing – review & editing, Takahiro Kiuchi: Writing – review & editing, Supervision.

Ethical approval

This article is an expert opinion and did not involve any human subjects. The ethical review committee at Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, granted an exemption from requiring ethics approval.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This article was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (20K10397).

Notes on contributors

Tsuyoshi Okuhara

Tsuyoshi Okuhara received his Master of Public Health and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Communication, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. His research interests include persuasive communication in public health. He is engaged in research and education to communicate health and medical information more clearly to public and to support audiences’ better decision-making and behavior change. He has over 80 research papers to his credit.

Hiroko Okada

Hiroko Okada received her Master of Public Health and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Communication, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. Her research interests include medical decision-making.

Takahiro Kiuchi

Takahiro Kiuchi is a Medical Doctor and received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Health Communication, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. His research interests include health communication and medical informatics.