COVID-19 Misinformation Prophylaxis: Protocol for a Randomized Trial of a Brief Informational Intervention

Background: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect life in the United States, the important role of nonpharmaceutical preventive behaviors (such as wearing a face mask) in reducing the risk of infection has become clear. During the pandemic, researchers have observed the rapid proliferation of misinformed or inconsistent narratives about COVID-19. There is growing evidence that such misinformed narratives are associated with various forms of undesirable behavior (eg, burning down cell towers). Furthermore, individuals’ adherence to recommended COVID-19 preventive guidelines has been inconsistent, and such mandates have engendered opposition and controversy. Recent research suggests the possibility that trust in science and scientists may be an important thread to weave throughout these seemingly disparate components of the modern public health landscape. Thus, this paper describes the protocol for a randomized trial of a brief, digital intervention designed to increase trust in science. Objective: The objective of this study is to examine whether exposure to a curated infographic can increase trust in science, reduce the believability of misinformed narratives, and increase the likelihood to engage in preventive behaviors. Methods: This is a randomized, placebo-controlled, superiority trial comprising 2 parallel groups. A sample of 1000 adults aged ≥18 years who are representative of the population of the United States by gender, race and ethnicity, and age will be randomly assigned (via a 1:1 allocation) to an intervention or a placebo-control arm. The intervention will be a digital infographic with content based on principles of trust in science, developed by a health communications expert. The intervention will then be both pretested and pilot-tested to determine its viability. Study outcomes will include trust in science, a COVID-19 narrative belief latent profile membership, and the likelihood to engage in preventive behaviors, which will be controlled by 8 theoretically selected covariates. Results: This study was funded in August 2020, approved by the Indiana University Institutional Review Board on September 15, 2020, and prospectively registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. Conclusions: COVID-19 misinformation prophylaxis is crucial. This proposed experiment investigates the impact of a brief yet actionable intervention that can be easily disseminated to increase individuals’ trust in science, with the intention of affecting misinformation believability and, consequently, preventive behavioral intentions

Cortical hot spots and labyrinths: why cortical neuromodulation for episodic migraine with aura should be personalized

Stimulation protocols for medical devices should be rationally designed. For episodic migraine with aura we outline model-based design strategies toward preventive and acute therapies using stereotactic cortical neuromodulation. To this end, we regard a localized spreading depression (SD) wave segment as a central element in migraine pathophysiology. To describe nucleation and propagation features of the SD wave segment, we define the new concepts of cortical hot spots and labyrinths, respectively. In particular, we firstly focus exclusively on curvature-induced dynamical properties by studying a generic reaction-diffusion model of SD on the folded cortical surface. This surface is described with increasing level of details, including finally personalized simulations using patient's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner readings. At this stage, the only relevant factor that can modulate nucleation and propagation paths is the Gaussian curvature, which has the advantage of being rather readily accessible by MRI. We conclude with discussing further anatomical factors, such as areal, laminar, and cellular heterogeneity, that in addition to and in relation to Gaussian curvature determine the generalized concept of cortical hot spots and labyrinths as target structures for neuromodulation. Our numerical simulations suggest that these target structures are like fingerprints, they are individual features of each migraine sufferer. The goal in the future will be to provide individualized neural tissue simulations. These simulations should predict the clinical data and therefore can also serve as a test bed for exploring stereotactic cortical neuromodulation

Botched Ebola Vaccine Trials in Ghana: An Analysis of Discourses in the Media

In June 2015, proposed Ebola vaccine trials were suspended by the Ministry of Health of Ghana amid protests from members of parliament and the general public. Scholarship has often focused on the design, development, and administration of vaccines. Of equal importance are the social issues surrounding challenges with vaccine trials and their implementation. The purpose of this study was to analyze discourses in the media that led to the suspension of the 2015 Ebola vaccine trials in Ghana. I use a sociological lens drawing on moral panic and risk society theories. The study qualitatively analyzed discourses in 18 semi-structured interviews with media workers, selected online publications, and user comments about the Ebola vaccine trials. The findings show that discourses surrounding the Ebola vaccine trials drew on cultural, biomedical, historical, and even contextual knowledge and circumstances to concretize risk discourses and garner support for their positions. Historical, political, and cultural underpinnings have a strong influence on biomedical practices and how they are (not) accepted. This study highlights the complexity and challenges of undertaking much needed vaccine tests in societies where the notion of drug trials has underlying historical and sociological baggage that determine whether (or not) the trials proceed

Communicating in a Public Health Crisis: The Case of Ebola in West Africa

The global health system is ill prepared to handle communicable health crises, much less effectively communicate about them, as evidenced by the West African Ebola outbreak. Although some critics have argued that the delay in international response contributed to the fast spread of the disease, others place greater blame on local cultural practices. The current study investigated how risk/crisis communication was produced, deployed, and received. This is particularly critical as the World Health Organization guidance on crisis/risk communication is not based on systematic evidence-based research Again, risk communication on communicable diseases is still relatively new and the body of research lacks both rigorous empirical evidence and evaluation research on event-specific risk communication efforts. Guided by the protection motivation theory and social mobilization theory, and using a comparative case study approach, this study sought to examine how crisis risk communication was undertaken and received in Liberia and Ghana and the implications for health crisis risk communication. Data was collected via interviews with communication and social mobilization team representatives in the two countries, document reviews, surveys of a cross section of inhabitants in Margibi and Shai Osudoku districts, and focus group discussions with purposively selected participants in the two countries. The study finds that expert-led top-bottom communication interventions used at the start of the outbreak were ineffective in getting target audiences to make the recommended behavior changes in Liberia. Messages developed induced fear rather than action. Furthermore, one in five respondents today, cannot identify the main signs and symptoms of Ebola. Again, the more worried people were about Ebola, the more vulnerable they felt. Finally, respondents moved through a cycle from equilibrium to defense to protection and then back to equilibrium as they sought to make sense of the disease and the communication they received about Ebola. It is recommended that risk communication include bottom-up community-led communication approaches and systems that are embedded within community culture and reality and used by community members. Again, the research challenged the assumption in risk perception studies that increasing knowledge and self-efficacy lowers risk perception thus suggesting the need for further studies in this area.10000-01-0

Communicating a Health Risk/Crisis: Exploring the Experiences of Journalists Covering a Proximate Epidemic

Media are an indispensable partner in health communication but, there is often concern about how the media cover health and science issues. These critiques tend to be based on analyses of news content that don’t consider the production process of the content. Using a media sociology framework, the paper examines the news production process of the Ebola outbreak from the perspective of Ghanaian journalists. The study finds that routines influenced what the media produced. This study reiterates the call for public health to work closely with the media, and to provide translated health information in multilingual low literate societies

Using infographics to improve trust in science: a randomized pilot test

This study describes the iterative process of selecting an infographic for use in a large, randomized trial related to trust in science, COVID-19 misinformation, and behavioral intentions for non-pharmaceutical prevenive behaviors. Five separate concepts were developed based on underlying subcomponents of ‘trust in science and scientists’ and were turned into infographics by media experts and digital artists. Study participants (n = 100) were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and randomized to five different arms. Each arm viewed a different infographic and provided both quantitative (narrative believability scale and trust in science and scientists inventory) and qualitative data to assist the research team in identifying the infographic most likely to be successful in a larger study

Factors Associated with Reported Likelihood to Get Vaccinated for COVID-19 in a Nationally Representative US Survey

Objectives While general principles related to vaccination hesitancy have been well-researched, reports on reluctance to be vaccinated for COVID-19 in the US are somewhat surprising given the disease’s substantive disruption of everyday life. However, the landscape in which people are making COVID-19 vaccination decisions has recently evolved with releases of encouraging vaccine-related data and changes to official messaging about the virus. Therefore, this study sought to identify factors associated with reported likelihood to get vaccinated for COVID-19 among US adults in late January 2021. Study Design We used the Prolific online research panel to survey a nationally representative sample of 1,017 US adults. Methods Respondents were asked about their behavioral intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination, trust in science, perceptions related to COVID-19, and selected sociodemographic factors. We computed associations between those 11 independent variables and likelihood to get vaccinated for COVID-19 using multiple linear regression. Results Around 73.9% of respondents indicated at least some likelihood to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Trust in science and perceived seriousness of COVID-19 were positively associated, and identifying as Black or African American was negatively associated, with intention to get vaccinated. Other factors were moderately, weakly, or not at all associated with intention. Conclusions Building trust in science and truthfully emphasizing the seriousness of catching COVID-19 should be further researched for their potential to support campaigns to encourage COVID-19 vaccination. Data continue to suggest the importance of dialogue with Black communities about COVID-19 vaccination

Intervening on Trust in Science to Reduce Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation and Increase COVID-19 Preventive Behavioral Intentions: Randomized Controlled Trial

BackgroundTrust in science meaningfully contributes to our understanding of people’s belief in misinformation and their intentions to take actions to prevent COVID-19. However, no experimental research has sought to intervene on this variable to develop a scalable response to the COVID-19 infodemic. ObjectiveOur study examined whether brief exposure to an infographic about the scientific process might increase trust in science and thereby affect belief in misinformation and intention to take preventive actions for COVID-19. MethodsThis two-arm, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial aimed to recruit a US representative sample of 1000 adults by age, race/ethnicity, and gender using the Prolific platform. Participants were randomly assigned to view either an intervention infographic about the scientific process or a control infographic. The intervention infographic was designed through a separate pilot study. Primary outcomes were trust in science, COVID-19 narrative belief profile, and COVID-19 preventive behavioral intentions. We also collected 12 covariates and incorporated them into all analyses. All outcomes were collected using web-based assessment. ResultsFrom January 22, 2021 to January 24, 2021, 1017 participants completed the study. The intervention slightly improved trust in science (difference-in-difference 0.03, SE 0.01, t1000=2.16, P=.031). No direct intervention effect was observed on belief profile membership, but there was some evidence of an indirect intervention effect mediated by trust in science (adjusted odds ratio 1.06, SE 0.03, 95% CI 1.00-1.12, z=2.01, P=.045) on membership in the “scientific” profile compared with the others. No direct nor indirect effects on preventive behaviors were observed. ConclusionsBriefly viewing an infographic about science appeared to cause a small aggregate increase in trust in science, which may have, in turn, reduced the believability of COVID-19 misinformation. The effect sizes were small but commensurate with our 60-second, highly scalable intervention approach. Researchers should study the potential for truthful messaging about how science works to serve as misinformation inoculation and test how best to do so. Trial RegistrationNCT04557241; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04557241 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)RR2-10.2196/2438