Combating Online Misinformation Regarding Vaccinations

The Influence of a Warning Tool on Information Choice

Abstract

An increasing number of parents refrain from vaccinating their children. This causes lower immunisation coverage, resulting in disease outbreaks. Online misinformation about early-childhood vaccination is a potential cause of this problem. This study tests whether a warning tool, with the appearance of a traffic light, can influence parents’ information choices. An online experiment was conducted with parents and expecting parents (N = 179) with varying pre-existing attitudes and in different decision stages. Participants were asked to select three vaccine-related web links on a Google search result page either with or without the warning tool present. Results showed that participants in the warning tool condition (i.e., who saw reliability labels) selected a higher number of links marked as reliable compared to participants in the control group. No significant moderating effect of decision stage and pre-existing attitude were found. As our findings suggest that a warning tool can lead to better-informed vaccination decisions, the implementation of such a warning tool may prove worthwhile.