The goal of this research was to study the factors that impact trust in COVID-19 information, particularly among older adults. Vulnerable populations such as older adults can be hard to reach online. During a pandemic like COVID-19 when much research data collection must be conducted online only, these populations risk being further underrepresented. This project involved mixed-method, rigorous, and efficient research with a large number of older adults online. Data collections included a survey of 454 US adults (including 243 older adults), interviews with 30 older adults, and an experiment with 725 US adults (including 319 older adults). Path analysis of the survey data showed that trust in direct personal contacts (B = .071, p = .04) and attention to information quality (B = .251, p < .001) were positively related to self-efficacy for coping with COVID-19. Self-transcendence had significant positive indirect effects on self-efficacy (mediated by attention to information quality; effect = 0.049, 95% CI 0.001–0.104) and factual knowledge (mediated by attention to information quality; effect=0.037, 95% CI 0.003–0.089). Age was positively related to trust in mass media among participants with higher self-transcendence (B = .024, p < .001). The interaction between age and self-transcendence suggests that efforts to improve trust in mass media for public health information should specifically target younger adults who value self-transcendence. Interviews revealed that mass media, valued individuals, and the internet were the main sources older adults turned to for COVID-19 public health information. Although they used social media for entertainment and communication with friends and family, older adults actively avoided accessing or sharing COVID-19 information on social media. Factors influencing older adults’ trust in COVID-19 public health information included confirmation bias, personal research, resigned acceptance, and personal relevance. Interview and experiment data led to identifying six vaccine hesitancy themes: concerns for the vaccines’ future effects, doubts of the vaccines’ effectiveness, commercial profiteering, preference for natural immunity, personal freedom, and COVID-19 denial. These data also included evidence of six categories of misinformation: medical, scientific, political, media, religious, and technological. The experiment data revealed that numeracy plays a critical role in impacting vaccine attitudes. Presenting statistical information in an accessible and comprehensible way may improve people’s numeracy and, subsequently, their understanding of health information and decision making. Fuzzy trace theory suggests that people often judge a low probability event as more likely when presented in a large statistical format (e.g., 200 out of 10,000) than in a small number format (e.g., 2 out of 100). However, little is known about the effect of the statistical framing of public health messages on people’s willingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Experiment results showed that, compared with messages using small numbers to describe the frequency of serious vaccine side effects, those using large-number formats led to lower willingness to take vaccines in both older and younger age groups. These findings suggest that using a small statistical format for the frequency of vaccine side effects can better persuade both older and younger adults to take COVID-19 vaccines. Overall, the study findings shed new light on the factors that influence trust on public health information during a pandemic, including age, education, human values, misinformation, and numeracy..

Last Modified: 07/04/2022
Modified by: Kenneth R Fleischmann