The Roles of Mass Media and Personal Information Sources on Adoption of Pandemic Vaccines
In June 2009 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the H1N1 (swine flu) virus was a global pandemic caused by a highly contagious new combination of bird, pig and human viruses. Eighty percent of the victims were under 65 years and 30% had no under
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(1967) suggested that mass-media advertising was more effective in influencing the innovators and early adopters, while personal word-of-mouth information was more effective in influencing the early majority, late majority and laggards. An alternative theory is the one-step flow of communication (Bennett and Manheim 2006) which says that society, technology and individual communication habits have evolved over the past 50-60 years. Television and cable channels have proliferated, email databases and data mining provide better targeting opportunities, and individuals are more socially isolated than before. All of these conditions create opportunities for mass messages to be crafted and sent directly to selected individuals without any social meditation to alter their beliefs, attitudes and behavior. We wish to test whether mass media and personal information sources act according to the HBM model (they affect attitude alone, which, in turn affects intention) or whether they operate simultaneously on both attitude (perceived seriousness of the threat) and intention to get vaccinated. The latter is an important theoretical extension of the Health Belief Model which has significant implications for social marketing of vaccines to minimize the negative impact of future pandemics. The baseline (HBM) model we want to test is: Attitude = f (Credibility of mass media information sources, Credibility of personal information sources, Past behavior, Demographics) (1) Intention = f (Residual of Attitude, Cost-benefit of future behavior, Demographics) (2) The alternate model we want to test is: Attitude = f (Credibility of mass media information sources, Credibility of personal information sources, Past behavior, Demographics) (1) Intention = f (Residual of Attitude, Credibility of mass media information sources, Credibility of personal information sources, Cost-benefit of future behavior, Demographics) (3) DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS A one-page survey questionnaire was administered in person to adults in two shopping malls and three different neighborhoods of a large, west coast US city. Qualified respondents were those who either lived or worked in the city. Over 10 days in November 2009, 330 responses were collected, of which 321 were usable. Although a convenience sample, demographics of the sample closely matched demographics of the city published by the US census. Since respondent time constraints limit the amount of information that can be collected in an in-person survey, variables were mostly single-item Likert scales. Attitude (perceived seriousness of the threat) was operationalized by, “On a scale of 1-10 how concerned are you about getting H1N1/Swine Flu?”. Past behavior was captured by, “Did you take the flu shot last year? (Yes/No)”. We had three demographic variables: Age(18-29, 30-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+), Gender (Male/Female), and number of children at home. The cost-benefit trade off was captured by, “On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you in the safety of the H1N1 vaccine?”. Intention to get vaccinated was ope
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