In the midst of a pandemic, the efficacy of official measures to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis largely depends on public attitudes towards them, where conspiracy beliefs represent potential threats to the efficacy of measures such as vaccination. Here, we present predictors and outcomes associated with a COVID-19 vaccination conspiracy belief. In a representative survey of Germany, sociodemographic predictors of this belief were found to include age, federal state, migration background and school leaving qualification. The study revealed correlations with trust in scientific and governmental information sources, respondents’ self-assessment of being informed about science, general conspiracy mindedness, the frequency of using Twitter and messaging apps, as well as willingness to voluntarily take the COVID-19 vaccine. Our results cohere with and build on the general literature on conspiracy mindedness and related factors. The findings provide an evidence base for more effective health and crisis communication in Germany and beyond.

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Vaccination willingness is a critical factor in pandemics, including the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, investigating underlying drivers of vaccination willingness/hesitancy is an essential social science contribution. The present study of German residents investigates the mental shortcuts people are using to make sense of unfamiliar vaccine options by examining vaccination willingness for different vaccines using an experimental design in a quantitative survey. German vaccines were preferred over equivalent foreign vaccines, and the favorability ratings of foreign countries where COVID-19 vaccines were developed correlated with the level of vaccination willingness for each vaccine. The patterns in vaccination willingness were more pronounced when the national origin was shown along with the vaccine manufacturer label. The study shows how non-scientific factors drive everyday decision-making about vaccination. Taking such social psychological and communication aspects into account in the design of vaccination campaigns would increase their effectiveness.

The GlobalSCAPE project is setting out to investigate the experiences, attitudes, skills, needs, challenges and professional development of science communicators around the world. This is being achieved with a diary survey, a style of survey designed to be repeated at a set interval several times. The idea of such a survey is that the unfolding nature of a phenomenon can be more effectively captured through repeated measures than through a conventional cross-sectional survey design. Because the aims, scope and approach of this study are novel, a newly developed survey design was required. This work was led by survey experts within the GlobalSCAPE consortium, with input and feedback from other partners. The results survey design contained some previously validated items, but none that had been empirically assessed for the present context and survey structure. Therefore, to assess the clarity of survey questions prepared for the GlobalSCAPE science communicator diary research, a pilot study was conducted with a sample of participants gathered by project partners (n=23). This pilot research followed a piggyback approach, where follow up questions were asked of respondents after they completed each step in the survey. Results indicate that the vast majority of the questions were already clear and easy to understand. A small number of items resulted in a minority of respondents reporting uncertainty or confusion about how to respond. To address these issues, targeted adjustments to the survey design have been made. This methodological research offers insights to others who may seek to conduct survey studies with science communicators. It may also be helpful to those conducting diary survey research with professionals more generally.

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