ArticlePLOS global public health2023
Persuasive COVID-19 vaccination campaigns on Facebook and nationwide vaccination coverage in Ukraine, India, and Pakistan.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Social media-based interventions for improving vaccine uptake, reducing hesitancy, and combating misinformation: a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of RCT.BMC public health · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness of an online vaccine misinformation game for Arabic-speaking Australians: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in public health · 2026Trial
- Debunking COVID-19 vaccine misinformation with an audio drama in Ghana, a randomized control trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- "Vaccinating your child during an emergency is more important than ever": a randomised controlled trial on message framing among Ukrainian refugees in Poland, 2023.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2024Trial
- Digital Media for Health Outcomes: Evaluation Study of a Massive Online Open Course.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Psychological and socio-contextual factors influencing preventive healthcare decision-making: evidence from IT and ITES companies in three cities of India.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Article
- Assessing Message Deployment During Public Health Emergencies Through Social Media: Empirical Test of Optimizing Content for Effective Dissemination.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
24 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Social media platforms have a wide and influential reach, and as such provide an opportunity to increase vaccine uptake. To date, there is no large-scale, robust evidence on the offline effects of online messaging campaigns. We aimed to test whether pre-tested, persuasive messaging campaigns from UNICEF, disseminated on Facebook, influenced COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Ukraine, India, and Pakistan. In Ukraine, we deployed a stepped-wedge randomized controlled trial (RCT). Half of the 24 oblasts (provinces) received five weeks of the intervention, the other half ten weeks of the intervention. In India, an RCT with an augmented synthetic control was conducted in five states (Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan), whereby 40 out of 174 districts were randomized to receive six weeks of intervention. In Pakistan we deployed a pre-post design, whereby 25 city districts received six weeks of the intervention. Weekly COVID-19 vaccination data was sourced through government databases. Using Poisson regression models, the association between the intervention and vaccine uptake was estimated. In Ukraine we conducted a survey among Facebook users at three time points during the RCT, to ascertain vaccination intentions and trust in vaccines. The campaigns reached more than 110 million Facebook users and garnered 2.9 million clicks. In Ukraine, we found that the intervention did not affect oblast-level vaccination coverage (Relative Risk (RR): 0.93, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 0.86-1.01). Similarly, in India and Pakistan we found no effect of our intervention (India: RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.70-1.04; Pakistan: RR 0.64, 95% CI 0.01-29.9). The survey among Facebook users in Ukraine showed that trust in vaccines and information sources was an important predictor of vaccination status and intention to get vaccinated. Our campaigns on Facebook had a wide reach, which did not translate in shifting behaviours. Timing and external events may have limited the effectiveness of our interventions.
Identifiers
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.