ArticleScientific reports2022
Online misinformation is linked to early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and refusal.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 104 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
104 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 253 citations in OpenAlex.
- How has co-design been used to address vaccine hesitancy globally? A systematic review.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Pooled it
- The Prevalence, Features, Influencing Factors, and Solutions for COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation: Systematic Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Pooled it
- Effectiveness of an online vaccine misinformation game for Arabic-speaking Australians: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2026Trial
- Psychological inoculation improves resilience to and reduces willingness to share vaccine misinformation.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- The Resilience of Attitude Toward Vaccination: Web-Based Randomized Controlled Trial on the Processing of Misinformation.JMIR formative research · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Trends, disparities, and multilevel interventions: A global review of HPV vaccination among university students.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Review
- Misinformation Through the Lens of Dutch News Media and Public Health Authorities: Content Analysis of Topics and Narratives Present in Pandemic-Related Misinformation During COVID-19.JMIR infodemiology · 2026Article
- Factors Associated With Nurses' Self-Reported Susceptibility to Online Health Misinformation: Evidence From Greece.International nursing review · 2026Observational
- 2024-2025 COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Effectiveness Against Severe Disease.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Mpox Vaccine Hesitancy Among Sexually Active People with HIV in Care at Risk for mpox.AIDS and behavior · 2026Article
- Intuitions about content moderation are misaligned with effective practices for reducing conspiracy beliefs.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Global Sentiment Toward Health AI at the Dawn of the ChatGPT Era: Empirical Analysis of Twitter (X) Discourse.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Assessment of the Cultural Nuances in COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake Through a Comparative Analysis of English and Spanish Facebook Posts in Tarrant County, Texas: Longitudinal Study.Online journal of public health informatics · 2026Article
- Exploring the Relationship Between Susceptibility to Health Misinformation and Vaccine Hesitancy in Poland.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Platform compliance governance in digital public health communication: effects of emergency health knowledge dissemination on protective behaviors.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Psychosocial Determinants of Vaccine Hesitancy and Vaccination Behavior Among Older Adults in China: A Large Cross-Sectional Study.International journal of public health · 2026Article
- A cross-sectional survey of false beliefs about COVID-19 and their association with vaccine hesitancy and uptake in the United States and China.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Assessing the psychological factors associated with vaccine hesitancy: psychometric properties of the psychological factors in healthcare behavior questionnaire (PF-HBQ).Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Determinants of non-compliance with additional booster doses of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in people living with HIV (PWH): An observational study based on a behavioral and epidemiological survey in Rome (Italy).Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2025Observational
44 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Widespread uptake of vaccines is necessary to achieve herd immunity. However, uptake rates have varied across U.S. states during the first six months of the COVID-19 vaccination program. Misbeliefs may play an important role in vaccine hesitancy, and there is a need to understand relationships between misinformation, beliefs, behaviors, and health outcomes. Here we investigate the extent to which COVID-19 vaccination rates and vaccine hesitancy are associated with levels of online misinformation about vaccines. We also look for evidence of directionality from online misinformation to vaccine hesitancy. We find a negative relationship between misinformation and vaccination uptake rates. Online misinformation is also correlated with vaccine hesitancy rates taken from survey data. Associations between vaccine outcomes and misinformation remain significant when accounting for political as well as demographic and socioeconomic factors. While vaccine hesitancy is strongly associated with Republican vote share, we observe that the effect of online misinformation on hesitancy is strongest across Democratic rather than Republican counties. Granger causality analysis shows evidence for a directional relationship from online misinformation to vaccine hesitancy. Our results support a need for interventions that address misbeliefs, allowing individuals to make better-informed health decisions.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.