COVID-19 Vaccine Information-Seeking Patterns and Vaccine Hesitancy: A Latent Class Analysis to Inform Practice

Posted on February 21, 2024 by Rachael Piltch-Loeb

This entry is part 12 of 16 in the series Mar 2024

Different groups are consuming COVID-19 information in distinct ways. Public health messaging must recognize this and adjust content and dissemination strategies to meet users where they are.

Health professionals have taken an interest in the use of social media as a mechanism to reach populations, especially during a public health emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are clear generational differences in the use of social media platforms. Facebook’s most active demographic are members of the Baby Boomer generation, while TikTok users tend to be members of Gen Z. Despite some of the more obvious differences in the primary users of a particular platform, there are open questions on how users of all ages consume information across platforms.

Read the Article in JPHMP

In “COVID-19 Vaccine Information Seeking Patterns and Vaccine Hesitancy: A Latent Class Analysis to Inform Practice,” we (Piltch-Loeb and co-authors Diana Silver, Yeerae Kim, and David Abramson) set out to answer this question. Using data collected in April 2021, a critical window of the pandemic as the general population became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, we identified six patterns of information seeking related to COVID-19 using latent class analysis techniques and examined how class membership related to vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19. The six information seeking groups were named by the research team as:

Non-seekers, or those who did not seek information related to the vaccine during the study window;
Legacy users: those who were characterized by relying on TV and newspapers;
Legacy + Facebook/Instagram: those who sought information on TV but also were on Facebook/Instragram;
Traditional Omnivores: individuals who peppered a wide variety of information sources for content;
Omnivore + Broad Social Media: those who were utilizing many channels but had a higher propensity for social media; and,
Twitter users: a group that was solely proportionately using Twitter.

The highest portion of our sample (50%) were non-seekers. Socio demographics, political, economic, and COVID-19 exposure variables are associated with different patterns of seeking information about COVID-19. Membership in three of these classes was associated with higher rates of vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy.

As we note in the paper, “many of the differences that we found across these classes of media users are directly relevant to vaccine promotion.” For example, legacy media (TV and newspapers) use was predominantly among older adults. Older adults were initially prioritized for the vaccine and have subsequently been prioritized for booster shots. Focusing on TV and newspaper ads to promote boosters, rather than social media channels, could be the most efficient use of public communication resources in reaching this population.

Even today, we have gaps in COVID-19 vaccine coverage, and an uphill battle ahead for risk communication with the public. Our study is a critical reminder that 1) there are clear differences in how the population seeks information; 2) sociodemographics can contribute to patterns of information seeking; and 3) where information comes from may influence decisions that are made with that information, and further exploration is necessary. Given the noted differences in who seeks information where, message tailoring across platforms may be beneficial to reaching the population.

Author Profile

Rachael Piltch-Loeb: Rachael Piltch-Loeb, PhD, MSPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental, Occupational, and Geospatial Health Sciences. Dr. Piltch-Loeb’s work focuses on research, measurement, and evaluation of public health emergency preparedness and response and how to more effectively engage the public during public health emergencies.