The impact of nontransparent health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccine-hesitant people's perception of vaccines.

Background

Although transparency is crucial for building public trust, public health communication during the COVID-19 pandemic was often nontransparent.

Methods

In a cross-sectional online study with COVID-19 vaccine-hesitant German residents (

Results

Of the 763 participants, 90 (11.8%) said they had become more open-minded toward vaccines in general, 408 (53.5%) reported no change, and 265 (34.7%) said they had become more skeptical as a result of public health communication on COVID-19 vaccines. These subgroups differed in how incomprehensible they found public health communication and whether they thought information had been missing. Participants' ranking of trustworthy public health messaging did not provide clear-cut results: the

Discussion

Increased skepticism about vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic may have partly been fueled by subpar public health communication. Given the importance of public trust for coping with future health crises, public health communicators should ensure that their messaging is clear and transparent.

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2024 Wegwarth, Hertwig, Giese and Fineberg.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.