April 18, 2024 – It turns out not to be a Sisyphean task – or at least not impossible, like trying to roll a large boulder up a steep hill over and over again. Some people with deeply held beliefs on a wide range of health topics — from COVID vaccination to mental health stigma to foods including genetically modified organisms — could be persuaded to reconsider their positions.
But how you deliver the message is just as important as what you say, new evidence shows.
A traditional public health message like “Get vaccinated. It is good for your health and the health of others’ does not usually convince large numbers of people to immediately change their minds. There could be a reason why the CDC is reporting that only 23% of Americans has received the most recent COVID booster injection.
In contrast, the fact that someone who previously opposed the COVID vaccination explained why in his own words — and explained what happened to change his mind — prompted some people in one study to reconsider their stance.
These were not people who were “hesitant” about getting the vaccine. Years into the COVID pandemic, unvaccinated people “probably have some pretty deeply held beliefs,” says lead researcher Jeff Conlin, PhD, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “And we still saw success.”
These “two-way conversion messages” help because people first relate to the person with the resistant attitude, Conlin said. Then they will be more open to hearing why the person made the switch and got vaccinated. Authenticity also counts: it works best when the people telling the story have lived experiences.
Conlin and colleagues compared 384 unvaccinated adults who received a conversion message or a one-sided story from someone who always planned to get vaccinated. The strongest decline in hesitancy was among the most vaccine resistant, given the conversion stories. The complete study was published online in the journal in December 2023 Health communication.
And it’s not just about embracing a new kind of thinking, Conlin noted. These messages also help people “realize that their previous beliefs may have been misinformed or misleading.”
Conversion messages can also influence other widely held health beliefs. “We just started testing conversion messages with mental health stigma,” says Conlin. The goal is to test the strategy using a very specific story about someone who used to oppose counseling, treatment, and support services for anxiety or depression, for example, and why he later changed his mind.
Another study looked at how conversion messages influence attitudes on another controversial topic: genetically modified crops. In contrast to Conlin and colleagues’ research, these researchers found that the power of the message mattered most. They concluded that stronger messages could lead to more sustainable changes in postures. The research was published in April 2019 in the Public understanding of science log.
Give people a choice?
Simply giving people a choice over the brand of COVID vaccine could also increase uptake, according to the researchers research results from researchers at the University of Oregon, published this month in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
“People like to choose,” says Ellen Peters, PhD, study author and director of the Center for Science Communication Research at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in Portland. “People feel empowered when they are given a choice and are therefore more happy with the option they chose than if they had not had the opportunity to make the decision themselves.”
In several studies, people were more willing to be vaccinated against COVID if they had a choice between Pfizer and Moderna, for example, than if they were assigned to one of them, says Peters, who is also a professor of psychology at the university. .
“COVID created an unusual situation for vaccines. For the first time, we had multiple vaccine brands that people could talk about, and they did. I also think the tactic can work when multiple options are available. [such as] Tylenol versus Advil, different screening options for colorectal or other cancers, or the choice between surgery or medication.”
Conlin added, “What we want to do is [study] conversion messages in other diseases. That’s the goal.”
Maybe combine strategies?
When asked about her thoughts on Conlin’s research and the double-sided reporting, Peters said, “It’s a great idea to test vaccines, and I’m glad they did it.”
“It would be interesting to combine their approach with ours,” Peters continued. The tactic she studied worked in people who had previously been vaccinated and were considering a booster, as well as in unvaccinated people.
“Could the combination of their approach and ours further increase the number of people who plan to be vaccinated, especially among those who are hesitant to get vaccinated?” she asked.