Informiert = Geimpft? Das Informationsverhalten und die COVID-19-Impfentscheidung bei Studierenden

Vaccinations prevent several million deaths every year and have saved many lives in the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, vaccination hesitancy is one of the biggest global health threats and has been one of the major public health challenges during the pandemic in Germany. The identification of influencing factors on vaccination attitudes and behavior is especially important for targeted and tailored communication. Use of and trust in mass media and (other) information channels are among the potential factors that are regularly discussed in this context. Some international findings suggested that the use of traditional mass media could be associated with more realistic perceptions of vaccination and its benefits and risks and a higher intention to get vaccinated, while increased exposure to vaccination information on social media channels could be associated with increased false knowledge and increase vaccination hesitancy. The vaccination behavior of university students in the COVID-19 pandemic is of particular scientific and social interest. University students and their living and working environments at colleges and universities are generally considered to be particularly important target points for prevention and health promotion. Although their specific social and health situation has long been neglected by German policymakers during COVID-19 pandemic, university students as a young, active, and mobile subpopulation have repeatedly come into focus of pandemic containment and international research. International surveys in European countries such as France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, or the Czech Republic reported a (hypothetical) willingness to vaccinate among university students between 58 and 86% for COVID-19 vaccination, indicating that relevant proportions among the students were hesitant whether to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or not. Using the example of a German university in the summer term of 2021 and based on an online survey of university students (n = 1398), the present paper investigates to what extent vaccinated and unvaccinated students with high and (rather) low intention to get vaccinated differed a) with regard to their media and information use and b) their trust in media and information sources during COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey took place between June 21 and August 15, 2021, a few weeks after prioritization for COVID-19 vaccines ended. All students at the university were contacted via a central mailing list, through which they usually receive important news, for example about their grades. 1398 questionnaires in which the vaccination status was clearly stated were considered for analysis. Among the participants in our sample, younger and female students were overrepresented, compared to the distribution of these characteristics at the university respective among university students in Germany. More than two-thirds of the students had already received at least one vaccination against COVID-19 in the summer semester of 2021 (69.7%), just under one-third (30.3%) had not yet been vaccinated at that time. Vaccination readiness among unvaccinated students proved to be high, with nearly two-thirds (64.3%) reporting that they were “very likely” to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Using ANOVA and chi-square-tests, we systematically explored differences and similarities between vaccinated and unvaccinated students with high and low vaccination intention. The results showed significant differences between the three groups regarding their COVID-19-related information seeking and their trust in media and information sources. Vaccinated students used topic-related information more intensively than unvaccinated students with high vaccination intention and low vaccination intention, noticed that the latter informed themselves even less intensively than the students with high intention. Unvaccinated students were less likely to use offline media, in general and as topic-related source of information and were less likely to obtain corona-related information from health care professionals. A significantly lower proportion of unvaccinated students with a lower intention to get vaccinated used the official COVID-19 warning app and official websites of governments and public authorities as information sources. Students without COVID-19 vaccination and lower vaccination intention further expressed lower trust in the federal, state, and city government, and health authorities as information sources, whereas they rated alternative news sites and blogs as more trustworthy than their vaccinated fellow students. Our study provides important insights into university students’ vaccination behavior and possible communication-related influencing factors, which could especially be useful in the design of suitable and tailored target-group-specific campaigns to reduce vaccination hesitancy. To support and empower students during their primarily online-based topic-related information seeking, it may make sense not only to implement specific measures to prevent the dissemination of false information, but also to strengthen students’ media and health literacy with targeted programs to enable them to distinguish between reputable and dubious providers and sources, regardless of the channels they use, and to make appropriate health and vaccination decisions. When communicating vaccination-related information, it could further make sense to focus more on channels and actors that the rather sceptical members of the target group have comparatively high confidence in, given their absolute level of trust. As our survey showed comparably high levels of trust for health professionals and universities as information sources, in order to better reach vaccine-skeptical students, it could be helpful to use this knowledge and to reduce barriers and get those students better into conversation with health professionals. At the same time, it seems important to include colleges and universities as working and living environments of students even more in vaccination campaigns.