Vaccinating across the aisle: using co-partisan source cues to encourage COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the ideological right.

IMMUNIZATION; CONFIDENCE intervals; COVID-19 vaccines; PUBLIC health; SURVEYS; HEALTH literacy; VACCINE hesitancy; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; RESEARCH funding; SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC factors; LOGISTIC regression analysis; HEALTH promotion; PUBLIC opinion; PROMPTS (Psychology)

Overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States will require most Americans to vaccinate against the disease. However, considerable research suggests that a significant proportion of Americans intend to forego vaccination, putting pandemic recovery at risk. Republicans are one of the largest groups of COVID-19 vaccine hesitant individuals. Therefore, identifying strategies to reduce vaccine hesitancy within this group is vital to ending the pandemic. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of messages from co-partisan sources in reducing vaccine hesitancy. In a large (N = 3000) and demographically representative survey, we find that exposing "Middle-of-the-Road" partisans to pro-vaccine messages from co-partisan source cues reduces vaccine hesitancy. However, for those who identify as "Strong" or "Weak" partisans, we find no statistically significant differences in vaccination intentions when exposed to pro-vaccine messages from co-partisan sources. We conclude by discussing how our findings are helpful for vaccine communication efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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