IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i13p8033-d852453.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Infodemic, Institutional Trust, and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Cross-National Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Xi Chen

    (Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China)

  • Woohyung Lee

    (The JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China)

  • Fen Lin

    (Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a massive infodemic. Yet limited studies have quantified the impact of the COVID-19 infodemic on vaccine hesitancy. This study examined the effect of perceived information overload (IO) and misinformation on vaccine willingness and uptake within a cross-national context. It also investigated how trust in multiple institutions affected vaccine outcomes and moderated the relationship between the infodemic and vaccine attitude and behavior. A cross-national online survey of residents, representative of the general population aged ≥18 in six Asian and Western jurisdictions, was conducted in June 2021. The results showed that perceived IO was positively associated with COVID-19 vaccine willingness and uptake. Belief in misinformation was negatively associated with vaccine willingness and uptake. Institutional trust may increase vaccine willingness and uptake. Moreover, trust in the government and civil societies tended to strengthen the positive effect of IO and reduce the negative impact of misinformation on vaccine willingness and uptake. The relationship between belief in misinformation and getting vaccinated against COVID-19 was unexpectedly stronger among those with a higher level of trust in healthcare professionals. This study contributes to a better understanding of the main and interactive effect of the infodemic and institutional trust on vaccine outcomes during a pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Xi Chen & Woohyung Lee & Fen Lin, 2022. "Infodemic, Institutional Trust, and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Cross-National Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-13, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:13:p:8033-:d:852453
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8033/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/13/8033/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hyehyun Hong & Hyo Jung Kim, 2020. "Antecedents and Consequences of Information Overload in the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-15, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Željko Pavić & Emma KovaÄ ević & Adrijana Å uljok & Juraj Jurlina & Maja MiÅ¡kulin & Aida Mujkić & Ivan MiÅ¡kulin, 2023. "The Deficit and Contextual Models of Vaccine Hesitancy: A Test of the Mediation Paths," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    2. Yuan, Yaqi & Yeo, Shun Yuan & Lee, Kristen Schultz, 2024. "Different roles of interpersonal trust and institutional trust in motivating older adults to receive COVID-19 vaccines in Singapore," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qiong Wang & Xiao Luo & Ruilin Tu & Tao Xiao & Wei Hu, 2022. "COVID-19 Information Overload and Cyber Aggression during the Pandemic Lockdown: The Mediating Role of Depression/Anxiety and the Moderating Role of Confucian Responsibility Thinking," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Hongjie (Thomas) Zhang & Jen Sern Tham & Moniza Waheed, 2022. "The Effects of Receiving and Expressing Health Information on Social Media during the COVID-19 Infodemic: An Online Survey among Malaysians," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Qihui Xie & Yanan Xue & Zhuojun Zhao, 2022. "Understanding the Scientific Topics in the Chinese Government’s Communication about COVID-19: An LDA Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:13:p:8033-:d:852453. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.