Messaging to boost COVID-19 vaccinations: emphasize personal health benefits

The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a tremendous scientific response to the current global pandemic. However, vaccines per se do not save lives and restart economies. The success of the vaccines depends on the number of people getting vaccinated. We use a survey experiment to examine the impact on vaccine intentions of a variety of public health messages identified as particularly promising: three messages that emphasize different benefits from the vaccines (personal health, the health of others, and the recovery of local and national economies), and one message that emphasizes vaccine safety. Because people will likely be exposed to multiple messages in the real world, we also examine the effect of these messages in combinations. Based on a nationally quota representative sample of 3,048 adults in the United States, our findings suggest that several forms of public messages can increase vaccine intentions, but messaging that emphasizes personal health benefits had the largest impact.