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Yeah, vaccine denial is a spectrum and not all of the concerns are easily dismissed nonsense, even if the far end of it is. My experience in talking to vaccine

by Natsu 5y ago

Yeah, vaccine denial is a spectrum and not all of the concerns are easily dismissed nonsense, even if the far end of it is. My experience in talking to vaccine-hesitant people is that the most important thing is honesty, including honesty about what we don't know, what various authorities (e.g. the WHO) got wrong, the actual magnitude of both the risks (e.g. comparing long Covid to VAERS data), the science backing/not backing various regulations (6 ft is a guess based on the inverse square law and honestly kinda suspect, etc.), and discussion over how the risks are not evenly distributed in all populations. There's plenty of room in there for questioning things and I say that as someone who got fully vaccinated as soon as possible. Lately I've been spending some of my time trying to help various vaccine-hesitant online populations better understand the actual science on the subject and what we do/don't know. I find that some of the most prominent misconceptions are things like assuming that the vaccinations are 100% effective (Sinovac is what, maybe 60%?) or that mRNA vaccines are "gene therapy" (only in the sense that all viruses are, and at least the vaccine goes away in ~3 days instead of replicating inside you). Better resources that explain what we do and don't know focused on those points specifically and accessible to a lay audience would probably help the most people, preferably linking to scientific papers and primary sources to let the more scientifically minded dig in. After all, many people are not going to believe you if you tell them the vaccines are 100% safe. But they might believe you if you're honest that there are 1 in a million risks that are better on average than taking the same risk with a Covid infection and that the damn virus is likely to exist at least within outbreaks if not in community spread for several more years and talk about how the profile for long Covid vs. long-term vaccine side-effects is similar, but you get a smaller exposure from the vaccine because it breaks down and goes away. And if somehow it doesn't, someone posted the sequences on Github so it could be tested for specifically if that ever became necessary.

version_five 5y ago
Your approach seems pretty reasonable. Personally I think the scientific part of the debate is a bit of a red herring. People do things and take medicines all the time that they dont fully understand the risks and consequences of. I think a lot of the wariness comes from the obvious doctrinal viewpoint of a lot of vocal advocates of covid measures - making it an ultimatum where you're either fully on board or a "denier", anti-masker, whatever is not a way to win people over. It's an interesting problem, because in one respect you don't to encourage apathy or laziness, but on the other hand, people are rightly wary of any kind of zealotry or promotion - in most cases I see heavy advertising as an obvious red flag that something isn't what it seems. So like you say, having an honest discussion seems like the best approach (and respecting people's choices once you've given them the information). But that's probably true of most controversial things.
- Natsu 5y ago
  Yeah, it's funny, if you read How to Win Friends and Influence People and look only at the techniques mentioned directly without understanding them, you'd end up effectively becoming an old-timey salesman stereotype. If you look at the techniques being used on you, the reader of that book, and try to understand the principles, it's a much different book. Those techniques are constantly getting overused and burning out, they're just not a stable foundation to build something like public health communication on. It's better to do our best to be honest and present all the things we know and don't know and explain when and how new data enters the picture and changes our conclusions. But you have to be aware of that within your own reasoning process first to be able to explain it to someone else, so it's not that easy to communicate.
jollybean 5y ago
Except that large swaths of the population have reading comprehension of 9th graders. Someone sent me an article about the issues surrounding AZ vax, which concluded that it was safe. However, my friend interpreted all the concerns in terms of 'fear' - literally taking the results upside down. She didn't understand the article, just 'fear'. Which is why by and large 'transparency' is important, but also as important is to keep less material negative artifacts muted in terms of dissemination. Yes, the major news outlets do a side piece, and officials do their little press interviews and publish data, but it doesn't go to prime time. Literally the best thing to 'convince' people is to show others getting it. I'm still dismayed that Trump or Biden didn't ask the Avengers team to do more pro-vax stuff. Little vignettes with Captain America and Iron Man getting vaxxed would have been great. And then follow up with the real actors getting vaxxed. I'm surprised not to see more coordinated campaigns of celebrities, authors, singers, athletes especially NASCAR drivers and country singers do little public notices. If Lebron and Jordan want to help their community they could spend a few months going town to town, going to visit vax clinics, talking to staff, raising awareness, dropping into the local radio station/barber shops, schools. That would really help move the needle. Pun intended. Facts, or anything that requires cognitive interpretation is out of range for 1/2 the population, and may not get across to most of the rest through noisy media channels. I don't watch the news because I find it terrible, but it causes me to miss some key things. Very simple concepts, examples, images, emotion and especially 'social evidence' by those with 'social influence' (i.e. athletes, actors) is how the masses are moved. 'Keep Calm, Carry On' in red, with the Crown ... is one of the simplest, smartest public communications issuances ever. Edit: "Better resources that explain what we do and don't know focused on those points specifically and accessible to a lay audience would probably help the most people, preferably linking to scientific papers and primary sources to let the more scientifically minded dig in." This is a little upside down and implies kind of a misconception of public communications. It's very, very difficult to get simple, even essential messages across to large populations. Nuanced information is almost impossible. We can barely get the message of vaccine availability out. So we definitely want to have 'the latest information' about vaccines available on gov. web sites, and probably places like reddit threads etc. - but the people on the more literate end of the spectrum are already convinced. Those on the lower end of the spectrum are the problem - and they're not even going to be able to read 'scientific reviews' let alone even know what one is, let alone come across the literature in the first place, let alone have any interest whatsoever in reading it. I would urge you to go to Los Angeles and get on the bus. Just look around. Listen to what people are saying, what they are paying attention to, their vocabulary, the music they are listening to, their behaviour and interactions. Strike up a conversation. Many are elderly, many are isolated, many are migrants with weaker language skills and live in more isolated communities often not exposed to proper information. The 'lowest common denominator' is quite low and those are the people that are the most skeptical. 'The Rock', 'Oprah' and 'Kenney Chesney' would do 100x more to improve awareness than any pamphlet referencing scientific research. Some literacy stats [1] [1] https://literacyproj.org/ https://literacyproj.org/

by Natsu 5y ago

version_five 5y ago

Your approach seems pretty reasonable. Personally I think the scientific part of the debate is a bit of a red herring. People do things and take medicines all the time that they dont fully understand the risks and consequences of. I think a lot of the wariness comes from the obvious doctrinal viewpoint of a lot of vocal advocates of covid measures - making it an ultimatum where you're either fully on board or a "denier", anti-masker, whatever is not a way to win people over. It's an interesting problem, because in one respect you don't to encourage apathy or laziness, but on the other hand, people are rightly wary of any kind of zealotry or promotion - in most cases I see heavy advertising as an obvious red flag that something isn't what it seems. So like you say, having an honest discussion seems like the best approach (and respecting people's choices once you've given them the information). But that's probably true of most controversial things.

Natsu 5y ago
Yeah, it's funny, if you read How to Win Friends and Influence People and look only at the techniques mentioned directly without understanding them, you'd end up effectively becoming an old-timey salesman stereotype. If you look at the techniques being used on you, the reader of that book, and try to understand the principles, it's a much different book. Those techniques are constantly getting overused and burning out, they're just not a stable foundation to build something like public health communication on. It's better to do our best to be honest and present all the things we know and don't know and explain when and how new data enters the picture and changes our conclusions. But you have to be aware of that within your own reasoning process first to be able to explain it to someone else, so it's not that easy to communicate.

jollybean 5y ago

Except that large swaths of the population have reading comprehension of 9th graders. Someone sent me an article about the issues surrounding AZ vax, which concluded that it was safe. However, my friend interpreted all the concerns in terms of 'fear' - literally taking the results upside down. She didn't understand the article, just 'fear'. Which is why by and large 'transparency' is important, but also as important is to keep less material negative artifacts muted in terms of dissemination. Yes, the major news outlets do a side piece, and officials do their little press interviews and publish data, but it doesn't go to prime time. Literally the best thing to 'convince' people is to show others getting it. I'm still dismayed that Trump or Biden didn't ask the Avengers team to do more pro-vax stuff. Little vignettes with Captain America and Iron Man getting vaxxed would have been great. And then follow up with the real actors getting vaxxed. I'm surprised not to see more coordinated campaigns of celebrities, authors, singers, athletes especially NASCAR drivers and country singers do little public notices. If Lebron and Jordan want to help their community they could spend a few months going town to town, going to visit vax clinics, talking to staff, raising awareness, dropping into the local radio station/barber shops, schools. That would really help move the needle. Pun intended. Facts, or anything that requires cognitive interpretation is out of range for 1/2 the population, and may not get across to most of the rest through noisy media channels. I don't watch the news because I find it terrible, but it causes me to miss some key things. Very simple concepts, examples, images, emotion and especially 'social evidence' by those with 'social influence' (i.e. athletes, actors) is how the masses are moved. 'Keep Calm, Carry On' in red, with the Crown ... is one of the simplest, smartest public communications issuances ever. Edit: "Better resources that explain what we do and don't know focused on those points specifically and accessible to a lay audience would probably help the most people, preferably linking to scientific papers and primary sources to let the more scientifically minded dig in." This is a little upside down and implies kind of a misconception of public communications. It's very, very difficult to get simple, even essential messages across to large populations. Nuanced information is almost impossible. We can barely get the message of vaccine availability out. So we definitely want to have 'the latest information' about vaccines available on gov. web sites, and probably places like reddit threads etc. - but the people on the more literate end of the spectrum are already convinced. Those on the lower end of the spectrum are the problem - and they're not even going to be able to read 'scientific reviews' let alone even know what one is, let alone come across the literature in the first place, let alone have any interest whatsoever in reading it. I would urge you to go to Los Angeles and get on the bus. Just look around. Listen to what people are saying, what they are paying attention to, their vocabulary, the music they are listening to, their behaviour and interactions. Strike up a conversation. Many are elderly, many are isolated, many are migrants with weaker language skills and live in more isolated communities often not exposed to proper information. The 'lowest common denominator' is quite low and those are the people that are the most skeptical. 'The Rock', 'Oprah' and 'Kenney Chesney' would do 100x more to improve awareness than any pamphlet referencing scientific research. Some literacy stats [1] [1] https://literacyproj.org/ https://literacyproj.org/