Tailoring of Vaccine-Focused Messages: Moral Foundations

The baseline survey contains questions regarding level of existing vaccine hesitancy (Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) short scale and HealthStyles questions), demographic information, and intent to vaccinate their children. All study surveys will be completed on an electronic device.

Participants will be contacted two weeks after completing the baseline survey to answer questions about their moral beliefs. The survey will include questions form the Moral Foundations Questionnaire as well as additional questions. An algorithm will calculate the participant's moral matrix based on answers to these questions.

"Intervention messages consist of four short paragraphs. The first three focus on how getting vaccinated helps uphold specific moral foundations. The fourth summarizes the contents of the prior paragraphs.~Participants randomized to the morally congruent arm will receive a vaccine-related message developed to appeal to their three most-emphasized moral foundations. The first paragraph focuses on the most emphasized foundation, the second on the third-most emphasized, and the third on the second-most emphasized."

"Intervention messages consist of four short paragraphs. The first three focus on how getting vaccinated helps uphold specific moral foundations.~Participants randomized to the morally non-congruent arm will receive a vaccine-related message developed to appeal to their three least-emphasized moral foundations. The first paragraph focuses on the least emphasized foundation, the second on the third-least emphasized, and the third on the second-least emphasized."

Participants randomized to the control arm will be provided with a short passage about the costs and benefits of bird feeding.

Immediately after reading the randomly assigned message participants will complete a follow-up survey assessing level of existing vaccine hesitancy (PACV short scale and HealthStyles questions) and intent to vaccinate their children.