We should beware of ignoring uncomfortable possible truths (a reply to McManus et al)

Freeman, Daniel; Rosebrock, Laina; Petit, Ariane; Causier, Chiara; East, Anna; Jenner, Lucy; Teale, Ashley-Louise; Carr, Lydia; Mulhall, Sophie; Bold, Emily; Lambe, Sinéad

doi:10.1017/s0033291720002196

Cited by 14 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…In addition, data collected in an unpublished manuscript that surveyed the general public residing in Jordan and Kuwait were added to the final analysis [26]. [29,30]. Out of these 60 surveys, 47 were among the general public, eight surveys were among healthcare workers (doctors, nurses, or others), three surveys were among parents/guardians and two surveys were among University students ( Table 1).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy worldwide: a systematic review of vaccine acceptance rates

Sallam

2021

Preprint

382

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IntroductionUtility of vaccine campaigns to control coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is not merely dependent on vaccine efficacy and safety. Vaccine acceptance among the general public and the healthcare workers, appears to have a decisive role for successful control of the pandemic.AimTo provide an up-to-date assessment of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance rates worldwide.MethodsA systematic search of the peer-reviewed English survey literature indexed in PubMed was done on December 25, 2020. Results from 30 studies, met the inclusion criteria and formed the basis for final COVID-19 vaccine acceptance estimates. Results of an additional recent survey from Jordan and Kuwait was considered in this review as well.ResultsSurvey studies on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rates were found from 33 different countries. Among adults representing the general public, the highest COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rates were found in Ecuador (97.0%), Malaysia (94.3%), Indonesia (93.3%) and China (91.3%). On the other hand, the lowest COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rates were found in Kuwait (23.6%), Jordan (28.4%), Italy (53.7), Russia (54.9%), Poland (56.3%), US (56.9%), and France (58.9%). Only eight surveys among healthcare workers (doctors, nurses) were found, with vaccine acceptance rates ranging from 27.7% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 78.1% in Israel. In a majority of survey studies among the general public (62%), the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination showed a level of ≥ 70%.ConclusionsLow rates of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance were reported in the Middle East, Russia, Africa and several European countries. This could represent a major problem in the global efforts that aim to control the current COVID-19 pandemic. More studies are recommended to address the scope of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Such studies are particularly needed in the Middle East Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Middle and Latin America.Graphical AbstractCOVID-19 vaccine acceptance rates worldwideFor countries with more than one survey study, the vaccine acceptance rate of the latest survey was used in this graph. The estimates were also based on studies from the general population, except in the following cases were no studies from the general public were found (Australia: parents/guardians; DRC: healthcare workers; Hong Kong: healthcare workers; Malta: healthcare workers).

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy worldwide: a systematic review of vaccine acceptance rates

Sallam

2021

Preprint

382

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“…Respondents in the positive skew (Freeman et al, 2020a(Freeman et al, , 2020b(Freeman et al, , 2020c) condition support 1.73 conspiracy beliefs, those in the negative skew condition support 0.45, and those in our 'best practice' (balanced response options, with don't know) condition support 1.09 (all mean differences statistically significant at the 0.001 level). The problem of inflated estimates of agreement at item level accumulates over the full set of items, leading to large over-estimates of consistent proconspiracy beliefs when using the positive skew (Freeman et al (2020a(Freeman et al ( , 2020b(Freeman et al ( , 2020c approach): 14.6% of respondents in the positive skew condition agreed with all six pro-conspiracy statements compared to only 3.5% in our 'best practice' condition (and 0.6% in the negative skew condition). 10 The substantive results are the same if, given the ordinal nature of some of the adherence items, we calculate Kendall's tau-b correlations instead.…”

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confidence: 91%

Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance: taking measurement seriously

2020

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Background Freeman et al. (2020a, Psychological Medicine, 21, 1–13) argue that there is widespread support for coronavirus conspiracy theories in England. We hypothesise that their estimates of prevalence are inflated due to a flawed research design. When asking respondents to their survey to agree or disagree with pro-conspiracy statements, they used a biased set of response options: four agree options and only one disagree option (and no ‘don't know’ option). We also hypothesise that due to these flawed measures, the Freeman et al. approach under-estimates the strength of the correlation between conspiracy beliefs and compliance. Finally, we hypothesise that, due to reliance on bivariate correlations, Freeman et al. over-estimate the causal connection between conspiracy beliefs and compliance. Methods In a pre-registered study, we conduct an experiment embedded in a survey of a representative sample of 2057 adults in England (fieldwork: 16−19 July 2020). Results Measured using our advocated ‘best practice’ approach (balanced response options, with a don't know option), prevalence of support for coronavirus conspiracies is only around five-eighths (62.3%) of that indicated by the Freeman et al. approach. We report mixed results on our correlation and causation hypotheses. Conclusions To avoid over-estimating prevalence of support for coronavirus conspiracies, we advocate using a balanced rather than imbalanced set of response options, and including a don't know option.

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“…Following Freeman et al (2020a, b) and our pre-registration, we coded as agreement (1) the four response options expressing agreement on Freeman et al's scale and the nine-point extension, and either of the options expressing agreement on the conventional five-point scale. Responses were otherwise coded as not expressing agreement (0).…”

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confidence: 99%

Agreeing to disagree: reports of the popularity of Covid-19 conspiracy theories are greatly exaggerated

Sutton

Douglas

2020

Psychol. Med.

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A study recently published in this journal showed that agreement with conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic is associated with risky, non-compliant behaviours (Freeman et al., 2020a). It also indicated that this agreement is very common: 45% of British participants seemed to agree that Covid-19 is a bioweapon designed by China to destroy the West, while 20% seemed to agree that the pandemic is a conspiracy by Jews or Muslims. Accurate or not, these statistics paint a worrying picture. If accurate, millions of British people need to be disabused of wild conspiracy theories. If inaccurate, especially if they exaggerate the popularity of conspiracy theories, they could normalise Antisemitic, Islamaphobic, and conspiracist viewpoints (McManus, D'Ardenne, & Wessely, 2020), and misdirect policy, interventions, and further research. McManus et al. (2020) pointed out that Freeman et al.'s (2020a) study indeed runs these risks, because of a response scale that gave participants four options to agree (from 'agree a little' to 'agree completely'), and only one other option ('do not agree'). This imbalance of options is likely to cause participants who tend to acquiesce to perceived demands of survey questions to report inflated levels of agreement (Hibbing, Cawvey, Deol, Bloeser, & Mondak, 2019). We agree with this critique. As researchers who have published many papers on conspiracy theories, including their conceptualisation and measurement (

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We should beware of ignoring uncomfortable possible truths (a reply to McManus et al)

Abstract: et al (2020). We should beware of ignoring uncomfortable possible truths (a reply to McManus et al).

Cited by 14 publications

References 2 publications

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy worldwide: a systematic review of vaccine acceptance rates

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy worldwide: a systematic review of vaccine acceptance rates

Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs, mistrust, and compliance: taking measurement seriously

Agreeing to disagree: reports of the popularity of Covid-19 conspiracy theories are greatly exaggerated

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