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COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence

INTRODUCTION: Rumors and conspiracy theories, can contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Monitoring online data related to COVID-19 vaccine candidates can track vaccine misinformation in real-time and assist in negating its impact. This study aimed to examine COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theorie...

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Autores principales: Islam, Md Saiful, Kamal, Abu-Hena Mostofa, Kabir, Alamgir, Southern, Dorothy L., Khan, Sazzad Hossain, Hasan, S. M. Murshid, Sarkar, Tonmoy, Sharmin, Shayla, Das, Shiuli, Roy, Tuhin, Harun, Md Golam Dostogir, Chughtai, Abrar Ahmad, Homaira, Nusrat, Seale, Holly
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8115834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33979412
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251605
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author Islam, Md Saiful
Kamal, Abu-Hena Mostofa
Kabir, Alamgir
Southern, Dorothy L.
Khan, Sazzad Hossain
Hasan, S. M. Murshid
Sarkar, Tonmoy
Sharmin, Shayla
Das, Shiuli
Roy, Tuhin
Harun, Md Golam Dostogir
Chughtai, Abrar Ahmad
Homaira, Nusrat
Seale, Holly
author_facet Islam, Md Saiful
Kamal, Abu-Hena Mostofa
Kabir, Alamgir
Southern, Dorothy L.
Khan, Sazzad Hossain
Hasan, S. M. Murshid
Sarkar, Tonmoy
Sharmin, Shayla
Das, Shiuli
Roy, Tuhin
Harun, Md Golam Dostogir
Chughtai, Abrar Ahmad
Homaira, Nusrat
Seale, Holly
author_sort Islam, Md Saiful
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Rumors and conspiracy theories, can contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Monitoring online data related to COVID-19 vaccine candidates can track vaccine misinformation in real-time and assist in negating its impact. This study aimed to examine COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories circulating on online platforms, understand their context, and then review interventions to manage this misinformation and increase vaccine acceptance. METHOD: In June 2020, a multi-disciplinary team was formed to review and collect online rumors and conspiracy theories between 31 December 2019–30 November 2020. Sources included Google, Google Fact Check, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, fact-checking agency websites, and television and newspaper websites. Quantitative data were extracted, entered in an Excel spreadsheet, and analyzed descriptively using the statistical package R version 4.0.3. We conducted a content analysis of the qualitative information from news articles, online reports and blogs and compared with findings from quantitative data. Based on the fact-checking agency ratings, information was categorized as true, false, misleading, or exaggerated. RESULTS: We identified 637 COVID-19 vaccine-related items: 91% were rumors and 9% were conspiracy theories from 52 countries. Of the 578 rumors, 36% were related to vaccine development, availability, and access, 20% related to morbidity and mortality, 8% to safety, efficacy, and acceptance, and the rest were other categories. Of the 637 items, 5% (30/) were true, 83% (528/637) were false, 10% (66/637) were misleading, and 2% (13/637) were exaggerated. CONCLUSIONS: Rumors and conspiracy theories may lead to mistrust contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Tracking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in real-time and engaging with social media to disseminate correct information could help safeguard the public against misinformation.
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spelling pubmed-81158342021-05-24 COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence Islam, Md Saiful Kamal, Abu-Hena Mostofa Kabir, Alamgir Southern, Dorothy L. Khan, Sazzad Hossain Hasan, S. M. Murshid Sarkar, Tonmoy Sharmin, Shayla Das, Shiuli Roy, Tuhin Harun, Md Golam Dostogir Chughtai, Abrar Ahmad Homaira, Nusrat Seale, Holly PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Rumors and conspiracy theories, can contribute to vaccine hesitancy. Monitoring online data related to COVID-19 vaccine candidates can track vaccine misinformation in real-time and assist in negating its impact. This study aimed to examine COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories circulating on online platforms, understand their context, and then review interventions to manage this misinformation and increase vaccine acceptance. METHOD: In June 2020, a multi-disciplinary team was formed to review and collect online rumors and conspiracy theories between 31 December 2019–30 November 2020. Sources included Google, Google Fact Check, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, fact-checking agency websites, and television and newspaper websites. Quantitative data were extracted, entered in an Excel spreadsheet, and analyzed descriptively using the statistical package R version 4.0.3. We conducted a content analysis of the qualitative information from news articles, online reports and blogs and compared with findings from quantitative data. Based on the fact-checking agency ratings, information was categorized as true, false, misleading, or exaggerated. RESULTS: We identified 637 COVID-19 vaccine-related items: 91% were rumors and 9% were conspiracy theories from 52 countries. Of the 578 rumors, 36% were related to vaccine development, availability, and access, 20% related to morbidity and mortality, 8% to safety, efficacy, and acceptance, and the rest were other categories. Of the 637 items, 5% (30/) were true, 83% (528/637) were false, 10% (66/637) were misleading, and 2% (13/637) were exaggerated. CONCLUSIONS: Rumors and conspiracy theories may lead to mistrust contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Tracking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in real-time and engaging with social media to disseminate correct information could help safeguard the public against misinformation. Public Library of Science 2021-05-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8115834/ /pubmed/33979412 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251605 Text en © 2021 Islam et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Islam, Md Saiful
Kamal, Abu-Hena Mostofa
Kabir, Alamgir
Southern, Dorothy L.
Khan, Sazzad Hossain
Hasan, S. M. Murshid
Sarkar, Tonmoy
Sharmin, Shayla
Das, Shiuli
Roy, Tuhin
Harun, Md Golam Dostogir
Chughtai, Abrar Ahmad
Homaira, Nusrat
Seale, Holly
COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title_full COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title_fullStr COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title_short COVID-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: The need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
title_sort covid-19 vaccine rumors and conspiracy theories: the need for cognitive inoculation against misinformation to improve vaccine adherence
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8115834/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33979412
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251605
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