Combating Online Misinformation Regarding Vaccinations

An increasing number of parents refrain from vaccinating their children. This causes lower immunisation coverage, resulting in disease outbreaks. Online misinformation about early-childhood vaccination is a potential cause this problem. study tests whether warning tool, with the appearance traffic light, can influence parents’ information choices. online experiment was conducted and expecting (N = 179) varying pre-existing attitudes different decision stages. Participants were asked to select three vaccine-related web links on Google search result page either or without tool present. Results showed that participants condition (i.e., who saw reliability labels) selected higher marked as reliable compared control group. No significant moderating effect stage attitude found. As our findings suggest lead better-informed decisions, implementation such may prove worthwhile.