Messaging Strategies to Increase Peer Education on COVID-19 Vaccination and Climate Change

Developing and Evaluating Messaging Strategies to Increase Peer Education About COVID-19 Vaccination and Climate Change Among Adults in the United States

The primary objective of this protocol is to develop and evaluate peer communication interventions to encourage peer education around COVID-19 vaccination and climate change.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Vaccine Hesitancy; Climate Change
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Social diffusion intervention

Detailed Description

Investigators will use a RCT peer education intervention to address climate change-related behaviors as a control condition for the vaccination intervention. Both issues represent serious public health priorities and are sufficiently unrelated in order to act as control conditions for each other.

As a control topic, investigators will address climate change communication. This parallel topic was selected because it is (1) reasonably unrelated to the COVID-19 condition, (2) has clear individual-level behaviors that can be targeted for intervention, (3) has diversity in public attitudes like COVID-19 vaccines,18 (4) has parallels in COVID-19 in terms of polarization and discrediting of scientific research, (5) represents a significant threat to population health, and (6) has significant racial and ethnic disparities paralleling those of COVID-19.

Investigators will recruit a second sample of up to 800 eligible participants who will be asked to complete an intervention session, where they will receive training on how to talk to members of their social network about either COVID-19 vaccination or climate change. The two intervention conditions will differ based on topic (vaccination/climate change) but the intervention components will be comparable. During the intervention, participants will watch a series of videos that teach key communication skills for having conversation about the assigned topic. Additional videos will provide training in how to use social media as a communication platform to share information in case participants are unfamiliar. Participants will then complete practice activities where they will construct hypothetical conversations and react to/critique example conversations to practice implementing the communication skills. Upon completing the intervention, participants will be asked to try to talk to others in their social network about the topic area they were assigned to.

Two to four weeks after the intervention, participants who completed the intervention will be asked to complete a follow-up survey to assess whether participants had conversations with others in their social networks, if they used social media/text/e-mail to share accurate information, and to understand the outcome of the conversations (i.e. did they result in behavior change).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 600
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Carl A Latkin, Ph.D.; Phone Number: 14109553972; Email: carl.latkin@jhu.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Maryland
    • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21205
      • Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• English-speaking
• English-reading
• Reside in the United States
• Over 18 years of age
• Have passed Prolific's data quality checks on their previously submitted work
• Have heard of COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine

Exclusion Criteria:

• Do not provide informed consent.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: vaccine; Promotes COVID-19 vaccine uptake	Behavioral: Social diffusion intervention; training in communication skills
Active Comparator: climate change; Promotes climate change activism	Behavioral: Social diffusion intervention; training in communication skills

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Frequency of conversations about vaccines	A brief measure of frequency of conversations about vaccines in the prior month	1 month
Frequency of conversations about climate change	A brief measure of frequency of conversations about climate in the prior month	1 month
Actions to promote vaccine uptake in social network	Number of social network members that participate encouraged to become vaccinated	1 month
Actions to promote climate change activism in social network	Number of social network members that participate encouraged to engage in climate change actions	1 month

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Carl A Latkin, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 30, 2022
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 20, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 20, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 31, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 2, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): September 7, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 24, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 23, 2024
• Last Verified: January 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: IRB00018956

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: unidentified data
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Two years from the end of the study.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: contact the PI.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; ICF

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No