The Right Messenger is Important When Encouraging Vaccination

 

It's clear that vaccination rates are stalling in the U.S., with about 30% of the population vaccinated. This makes efforts to encourage hesitant people more important than ever. An op-ed published yesterday in Scientific American highlights the role local celebrities have to play in delivering such messages. 

It has been known for some time that trusted messengers are important sources of information about the importance of getting vaccinated.  This is particularly true for marginalized groups who have a well-founded distrust of the medical establishment. 

But even for non-marginalized groups, who does the encouraging is important. As the op-ed points out, people have known local celebrities—like news, sports, and weather reporters—for years. 

Audiences develop parasocial relationships with such people and trust them because of it. This is the reason you often see sportscasters or meteorologists doing local TV commercials. These sources are seen as familiar, unbiased sources of information.

Celebrities need not limited to those people only know virtually, through a screen. They can also be people like clergy and personal health care professionals.  If you are any of these kinds of people or know them, please encourage them to encourage others to get jabbed.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

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