Young adults’ preferences for influenza vaccination campaign messages: Implications for COVID-19 vaccine intervention design and development

Abstract

Background Health campaign interventions, particularly those tailored to the target audience’s needs and preferences, can cost-effectively change people’s attitudes and behaviors towards better health decision-making. However, there is limited research on how to best tailor seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns for young adults. Vaccination is vital in protecting young adults and their social circles (vulnerable populations like older adults) from the influenza virus and critical in shaping these emerging adults’ vaccination habits in the long run. However, amid the prevalence of easily-accessible, attention-grabbing, and often malicious false and misinformation (e.g., COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theories), it may be more challenging to develop vaccination messages that resonate with young adults well enough to attract their attention. Therefore, to bridge the research gap, this study examines young adults’ preferences for seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns to inform effective intervention design and development. Methods Qualitative survey questions were developed to gauge young adults’ preferences for seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns. A total of 545 young adults (73.9% female, Mage ​= ​19.89, SD ​= ​1.44) from a large University offered complete answers to a cross-sectional online survey. Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis procedures were adopted to guide the data analysis process. Results Thematic analysis revealed that young adults prefer seasonal influenza vaccination campaigns that rely on (1) quality and balanced information from (2) credible information sources, positioned in the (3) relevant health contexts, (4) emphasize actionable messages, and incorporate (5) persuasive campaign design. Interestingly, while many participants underscored the importance of fear-appeal messages in persuading them to take health actions, some young adults also suggested avoiding fear campaigns due to discomfort. Conclusions Insights of the study can inform seasonal influenza vaccination design and development, and have the potential to shed light on vaccination messaging in other vaccine contexts, such as COVID-19 vaccines. Results also underscore the need for health experts and government officials to adopt a more nuanced approach when selecting persuasive campaign appeals. While some young adults may resonate well with fear appeals, others may not. Future research could examine the underlying mechanisms that drive young adults’ preference for vaccination campaign intervention to enrich the literature further.

Factors That Shape Women’s Physical Activity: Development of the Reasons to Participate in Physical Activity Scale (RPPAS)

“…In other words, researchers should invite women in their design and development of the interventions that are targeted to this population. In light of the constraints posed by the pandemic, such as limitations on in-person meetings [ 54 ], another way to adopt the co-design method in developing women-specific physical activity interventions is via developing a theory-guided and evidence-based campaign and then gaining the key target audience’s insights [ 55 ], such as the example campaign the authors developed in the current study (see Figure 2 ). A schematic representation of the proposed co-design model could be found in Figure 3 .…”

Technology-based interventions for nursing home residents: a systematic review protocol

“…To successfully and effectively protect nursing home residents from global health crises such as COVID-19, stakeholders such as policy-makers, healthcare professionals, researchers informal caregivers and older adults themselves all need to contribute to the changemaking process (eg, research safeguards or underscores the importance of COVID-19 protective measures). [44][45][46][47][48][49] While some effective changes are resource intensive, time consuming and need concerted efforts from multilevel stakeholders to achieve, there are cost-effective, efficient and accessible health solutions available to nursing home residents, such as technology-based interventions. 50 51 Technology-based interventions can be considered as the use of technology (eg, digital devices such as tablets and wearable devices, communication platforms) to manage or support health promotion strategies that could offer accessible, affordable, convenient, and user-friendly health solutions to a target audience.…”

“…The above areas of inquiry resonate with the core principles of the socioecological model,40–43 which highlights the way individuals are influenced by a series of synergistic interactions between intrapersonal and interpersonal factors (eg, residents, resident families), organisational characteristics (eg, nursing homes), policy (eg, legislative response) and the social/community (eg, ageism) context and how these processes can change over time (see figure 1.) To successfully and effectively protect nursing home residents from global health crises such as COVID-19, stakeholders such as policy-makers, healthcare professionals, researchers informal caregivers and older adults themselves all need to contribute to the change-making process (eg, research safeguards or underscores the importance of COVID-19 protective measures) 44–49. While some effective changes are resource intensive, time consuming and need concerted efforts from multilevel stakeholders to achieve, there are cost-effective, efficient and accessible health solutions available to nursing home residents, such as technology-based interventions 50 51…”

The Joint Effects of Social Norm Appeals and Fear Appeals in COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign Posters on Self-Perceived Communication Quality and Vaccination Intention

“…For example, Kim et al (2020) found that the presence of fear appeals was associated with greater motivation to process human papillomavirus (HPV) protection-related information. While some other research studies demonstrated that individuals self-reported a higher level of discomfort, less attention, and lower level of self-efficacy when seeing fear appeals in vaccine promotion messages ( Ort and Fahr, 2018 ; Su et al, 2021 ). Thus, it is still unclear how fear appeals in vaccine campaign messages (e.g., the presence of negative pictures and content) affects motivations to control the danger or threat.…”

“…Previous studies have yielded mixed findings regarding the effect of fear appeals (e.g., So, 2013 ; Carcioppolo et al, 2017 ; Ort and Fahr, 2018 ; Kim et al, 2020 ; Su et al, 2021 ). For example, Kim et al (2020) found that the presence of fear appeals was associated with greater motivation to process human papillomavirus (HPV) protection-related information.…”