Research Article “The Impact of Online Misinformation on U.S. COVID-19 Vaccinations” (Preprint)

The following article (preprint) was recently shared on arXiv.

Title

The Impact of Online Misinformation on U.S. COVID-19 Vaccinations

Authors

Francesco Pierri
Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Indiana University

Brea Perry
Indiana University

Matthew R. DeVerna
Indiana University

Kai-Cheng Yang
Indiana University

Alessandro Flammini
Indiana University

Filippo Menczer
Indiana University

John Bryden
Indiana University

Source
arXiv:2104.10635v1

Abstract

Widespread uptake of COVID-19 vaccines is necessary to achieve herd immunity. However, surveys have found concerning numbers of U.S. adults hesitant or unwilling to be vaccinated. Online misinformation may play an important role in vaccine hesitancy, but we lack a clear picture of the extent to which it will impact vaccination uptake. Here, we study how vaccination rates and vaccine hesitancy are associated with levels of online misinformation about vaccines shared by 1.6 million Twitter users geolocated at the U.S. state and county levels. We find a negative relationship between recent levels of misinformation and daily vaccination rates. Consistently, negative opinions toward vaccines are correlated with misinformation. Vaccine hesitancy is also strongly associated with Republican vote share, but the association between vaccine outcomes and misinformation remains significant when accounting for political as well as demographic and socioeconomic factors. Hesitancy levels in Democratic counties with high misinformation match those in Republican counties. These results suggest that addressing online misinformation must be a key component of interventions aimed to maximize the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns.

Direct to Full Text Article
35 pages; PDF.

See Also: Interactive Resource: CoVaxxy: Visualizing The Relationship Between COVID-19 Vaccine Adoption and Online (Mis)Information

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