Promoting COVID-19 Vaccination Using the Health Belief Model: Does Information Acquisition from Divergent Sources Make a Difference?

Xiaodong Yang, Lai Wei and Zhiyue Liu
Additional contact information
Xiaodong Yang: School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
Lai Wei: School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
Zhiyue Liu: School of Journalism and Communication, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: As a promising approach to stop the escalation of the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccine promotion is becoming a challenging task for authorities worldwide. The purpose of this study was to identify the effective sources for disseminating information on the COVID-19 vaccine to promote individuals’ behavioral intention to take the vaccine. Based on the Health Belief Model (HBM), this study illustrated the mechanism of how COVID-19 information acquisition from different sources was transformed into vaccination intentions via health beliefs. Using an online survey in China, the structural equation model results revealed that perceived benefits and cues to action were positively associated with COVID-19 vaccination intentions, and perceived barriers were negatively related to the intentions. However, perceived susceptibility and perceived severity had no significant relationships with the intentions. Moreover, the findings unveiled differences in the effects of acquiring information via multiple sources among traditional media, new media, and interpersonal interactions. Notably, new media and interpersonal interactions were more salient in promoting vaccination intention via health beliefs, compared with traditional media. The findings from this study will benefit health officials in terms of utilizing different information sources in vaccine programs.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; information acquisition; vaccination intention; health belief model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3887/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/3887/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:3887-:d:778859

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().