Vaccine hesitancy continues to be on the rise, and social media is playing a role in who the public trusts for vaccine safety and guidance. Social media is a powerful medium for communication for adolescents around health information and will not hasten anytime soon. Social media contributes to vaccine hesitancy through an increase in misinformation and disinformation. If the attitude of increased hesitancy continues, it can pose a threat to the efforts already achieved to the advances to human health. Social media platforms continue to reach more people through easy access and sharing of information, and a person can share information at an alarming rate without factual evidence. There is growing damage to the credibility of vaccine safety that social media platforms portray and the time it can take to try and “undo” the damage.
Social media continues to increase vaccine hesitancy due to the misinformation and disinformation found on their platforms (Bonnevie, 2020). Similarly, the adolescent population has increased their hesitancy towards vaccines, both through misleading information they read on social media platforms and exposure to their parent’s vaccine hesitancy perspectives (Bonnevie, 2020). The World Health Organization has placed vaccine hesitancy as one of their top ten reasons for threats to global health (WHO, 2019). Social media has played a vital role in spreading fear-based information specific to vaccines such as SARS-CoV-2 to the public and has affected vaccine hesitancy (Cinelli, 2020).
I have personally seen how influencers affect my children and younger family members and caused divisive behaviours. Social media peer Influencers can have a positive effect on the adolescent population and, in turn, promote some of their decision-making. Ultimately, connecting with the influencer captures their attention and promotes interest in the topic being looked at (Lim, 2017).
I believe the key to addressing the Mis/Dis information, is to counter as quickly as we can as health care providers with the “right” information. Perhaps this means combining Influencers with Health promotion.
References
Bonnevie, E., Goldbarg, J., Gallegos-Jeffrey, A. K., Rosenberg, S. D., Wartella, E., & Smyser, J. (2020). Content Themes and Influential Voices Within Vaccine Opposition on Twitter, 2019. American Journal of Public Health, 110, S326–S330. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305901
Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C. M., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A. L., Zola, P., Zollo, F., & Scala, A. (2020). The COVID-19 social media infodemic. Scientific reports, 10(1), 16598. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5
Lim, X.J., Radzol, A.R., Cheah, J., & Wong, M.W. (2017). The Impact of Social Media Influencerson Purchase Intention and the Mediation Effect of Customer Attitude. Psychology, 7(2), 19-36. DOI: 10.14707/ajbr.170035
World Health Organization (2019). Vaccine uptake in Canadian adults: Highlights from the 2016 adult Immunizations Coverage Survey (aNICS). https://www.canada.ca/en/services/health/publications/healthy-living/2016-vaccine-uptake-canadian-adults-survey.html
Denise Balice MN, BScN, RN, CPMHN (C) 