School of Journalism and Communication/National Media and Experimental Teaching Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
College of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Front Public Health. 2023 Oct 6;11:1258466. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1258466. eCollection 2023.
Misinformation about the COVID vaccines poses a significant challenge to vaccination efforts in many countries. This study examined Chinese citizens' ability to correctly identify COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in geographic areas with and without a regional outbreak. We also investigated the associations between misinformation identification and information source usage, source trust, perceived information quality, and demographic characteristics.
The online survey was conducted in four cities from June 8th to 15th, 2021 in Guangdong Province, two of which were experiencing a regional surge of COVID-19 delta variant infections, and four cities in Hunan Province, a neighboring province largely unaffected.
A total of 4,479 individuals aged 18 and above completed the online questionnaire. Given survey length, those who finished the study under 5 min were excluded, resulting in a final sample of 3,800.
Misinformation identification, source exposure, source trust, and perceived information quality.
Results showed slightly higher levels of correct misinformation identification in surge vs. non-surge areas. Trust in official information sources was positively associated with correct misinformation identification in full sample analysis, while trust in informal sources was negatively associated with the same outcome. Perceived information quality was positively associated with correct misinformation identification in the full sample.
Information providers in China should enhance the quality of the vaccine information they provide, and the Chinese public should balance their usage of different sources of information to acquire vaccine knowledge.
有关新冠疫苗的错误信息给许多国家的疫苗接种工作带来了重大挑战。本研究考察了中国公民在有和没有地区性疫情爆发的地理区域识别新冠疫苗错误信息的能力。我们还调查了错误信息识别与信息来源使用、来源信任、感知信息质量和人口统计学特征之间的关联。
这项在线调查于 2021 年 6 月 8 日至 15 日在广东省的四个城市进行，其中两个城市正在经历新冠病毒 delta 变异感染的区域性激增，而四个城市在湖南省，一个受影响较小的邻近省份。
共有 4479 名 18 岁及以上的人完成了在线问卷。由于调查长度的原因，那些在 5 分钟内完成研究的人被排除在外，最终样本为 3800 人。
错误信息识别、来源暴露、来源信任和感知信息质量。
结果显示，在疫情地区和非疫情地区，正确识别错误信息的水平略高。在全样本分析中，对官方信息源的信任与正确识别错误信息呈正相关，而对非正式信息源的信任与同样的结果呈负相关。感知信息质量与全样本中的正确错误信息识别呈正相关。
中国的信息提供者应提高他们提供的疫苗信息质量，而中国公众应平衡使用不同的信息来源来获取疫苗知识。
