Do tailored infographics increase flu shot intentions in hesitant individuals?

Objective.
Interventions to lower vaccine hesitancy often have positive effects among people who hold a favorable attitude towards vaccination and more mixed effects among vaccine hesitant people. One possible explanation is that the intervention is typically a generic intervention that is not tailored to the specific reason why a person is hesitant towards vaccination. The attitude-roots model proposes that interventions are more likely to be successful when tailored to the particular underlying cause or reason for people’s opposition to vaccination. In this study, we tested this proposition by assessing whether a tailored information intervention is effective in increasing flu shot intentions.

Methods.
Participants (N = 1,021) rated 66 vaccination statements, reported their flu shot intentions at two time points, and were presented with either a tailored infographic, a generic infographic, or no infographic.

Results.
Flu shot intentions increased significantly after people were presented with a tailored infographic that was relevant to their underlying anti-vaccination motivation, but this increase was not significantly greater than the increase observed among participants who were presented with the generic infographic or no infographic. Explorative analysis showed that tailoring might be more effective for some motivations (e.g., unwarranted beliefs) and not effective for others (e.g., religion).

Conclusions.
Overall, our findings showed mixed support for the effectiveness of a tailored approach to increase flu shot intentions. This suggests that more research is needed to determine if and how tailored information interventions are a viable strategy to reduce flu shot hesitancy.