Bleakley and her colleagues’ research, specifically looking at
vaccine hesitancy among demographic groups, was recently published in
the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
They surveyed national samples of different demographic groups:
Black, Hispanic, white, those age 18-49 and those 50 and older. They
examined such questions as attitudes toward science, misperceptions
about the COVID virus, perceptions of media bias and what is called
normative pressure — whether people who are important to you think you
should get the vaccine and whether people who are like you will get the
vaccine.
National research from November 2020 showed that Black Americans said
they were much less likely than whites to get the vaccine when it
became available. Bleakley and her colleagues delved into other
attitudes and factors in different groups, using a widely tested
behavioral theory called Reasoned Action Approach (RAA), which examines
underlying beliefs.
The study found that many patterns were similar across groups,
including the value an individual placed on science and whether they
were receiving accurate information about COVID and the vaccine. Older
adults in all groups were more susceptible to misinformation, for
example.
“What we found is that attitudes are important across the board,
including a person’s expectation of what will happen once they get the
vaccine,” Bleakley said. “There weren’t as many differences among racial
and ethnic groups as we had anticipated, especially among older
adults.”
People’s attitudes, she said, are very much tied to their identity —
whether to a racial or ethnic group, a political party or other factors
they consider important — and so are not easy to change. Messaging is
important in the area of public health, but messaging alone isn’t
enough, she said.
Bleakley called the published paper “a first step in figuring out how to create effective messaging.”
And the project is continuing, with researchers surveying
participants every month and tracking their attitudes and their
vaccination status. Other papers by various researchers in the
department are in process as the monthly data is collected and analyzed
with the help of graduate and undergraduate students.
“We have a huge amount of data coming in,” Bleakley said. “We’re
lucky to have such an engaged group of students working on this.”
About the research project
The paper published in October is titled “Psychosocial Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccination Intention Among White, Black, and Hispanic Adults in the US.”
Co-authors, with Bleakley, are Michael Hennessey, Erin Maloney,
Dannagal G. Young, John Crowley and Kami Silk, all of the UD Department
of Communication, and Jessica B. Langbaum of Banner Alzheimer’s
Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.
The work was funded by a National Institute of Aging grant, “COVID-19
Spillover: How the COVID-19 information environment affects perceptions
of scientific research and Alzheimer’s disease prevention efforts.”
The original grant was designed to find ways to increase
participation, and especially diversity of participation, in brain
health registries that feed into clinical studies of Alzheimer’s. The
expanded grant also examines perceptions of COVID, including the monthly
online surveys of participants, and will include a 12-month content
analysis of news coverage of the pandemic.
About health communication research at UD
Numerous other research projects have been conducted or are underway
in the communication department, which has a developing specialization
in health communication and is establishing a Center for Health
Communication.
Projects by UD scholars include the following:
- Research published this year in the Journal of Hate Studies
examined which groups are more likely to carry anti-Asian biases,
exacerbated by the pandemic, so that that messaging can more effectively
counteract the xenophobia.
- Last year, research published in the journal Health Communication
used national survey results to identify which populations are most
likely to take preventive actions against exposure to COVID-19 to
understand why some take action while others ignore health
recommendations.
- Morgan Ellithorpe, an assistant professor who joined the
communication faculty last fall, received a General University Research
Grant to look at intentions of parents with children under 5 to
vaccinate for COVID-19.
- This November, postdoctoral researcher Erin Maloney presented her
COVID-19 communication research at the National Communication
Association Annual Convention in Seattle, Washington. Her paper was
titled “High-Risk Populations, Television News Media, and Misperceptions
about COVID-19: Informing the Creation of Enhanced Correctives.”
Article by Ann Manser; photo by iStock and courtesy of Amy Bleakley
Published Jan. 21, 2022