IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jabe00/v10y2021i4p12-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Does Communicating Herd Immunity Affect Immunization Intentions?: Evidence From a Cross-Country Online Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Sandro Stoffel

    (Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy & Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London, London, UK & Institute of Pharmaceutical Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland)

  • Benedikt Herrmann

    (Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy)

Abstract

While previous studies have shown that communicating herd immunity can increase immunization intentions, it is unclear how the definition of the beneficiaries influences intentions. In a vignette study, using a new hypothetical influenza virus, 4,172 participants from five European countries (Bulgaria, N=873; Denmark, N=896; England, N=873; Estonia, N=916; and Italy, N=745) were randomized to one of three experimental conditions: (1) control (no mention of herd immunity), (2) society (social benefit of immunization for overall society mentioned), and (3) friends (social benefit for friends and family members mentioned). While the study did not find that communicating herd immunity influenced overall immunization intentions across the five countries, it found substantial cross-country differences in the effect of the communication. In England, friends increased intentions, while society increased intentions in Denmark but decreased it in Italy. While communicating the social benefit of immunization can influence intentions, its contrasting effects highlight the importance of empirically testing.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandro Stoffel & Benedikt Herrmann, 2021. "How Does Communicating Herd Immunity Affect Immunization Intentions?: Evidence From a Cross-Country Online Experiment," International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE), IGI Global, vol. 10(4), pages 12-20, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:igg:jabe00:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:12-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/IJABE.2021100102
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:igg:jabe00:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:12-20. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journal Editor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.igi-global.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.