The impact of evidence type and message framing on promoting HPV vaccination in online health communities

Abstract

Message features and type are crucial in health-related communication, especially due to the potential impact these messages can have on an individual's health. This study uses a 2 ' 2 experimental design (evidence type: statistical evidence vs. narrative evidence; message framing: gain-framed message vs. loss-framed message), to investigate how evidence type and message framing affect the attitudes, health beliefs, and intentions of college students in online health communities, regarding getting the HPV vaccination. Preliminary results (N=300) indicated that; (1) evidence type and message framing both influence attitudes and intentions significantly; Statistical evidence will lead to more favorable views than narrative evidence, and loss-framed messages will lead to more favorable views than gain-framed messages. (2) Concerning the interactions, we used construal level theory and found that, for gain-framed message, narrative evidence will lead to more favorable attitudes, free intentions, perceived benefits and barriers of HPV vaccination than statistical evidence; for loss-framed message, statistical evidence will lead to more favorable attitudes, intentions, perceived seriousness, benefits and barriers of HPV vaccination than narrative evidence

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