Project Summary/Abstract
Social media has accelerated the spread of vaccine misinformation leading to decreased immunization rates
and increased preventable deaths in the US and globally. The health impact of misinformation is particularly
critical to understand and address when considering the lives of minoritized racial and ethnic groups who are
often the target of misinformation campaigns or who may not have easy access to culturally relevant and
language-concordant reputable sources. Although access to vaccines remains a significant barrier, vaccine
safety confidence is a significant predictor of influenza and COVID vaccination in Hispanic adults. Yet,
little is known about how misinformation narratives emerge specifically in relation to Hispanic communities, how
they are disseminated, and how they ultimately affect people’s decision to get vaccinated.
Social media posts that include personal narratives are more effective at communicating reliable health
recommendations, especially those that come from a trusted peer. Therefore, communication strategies that
leverage community and interpersonal relationships can prove extremely effective at debunking misinformation
about vaccines. Promotores de salud are trusted community members who serve as links between health/social
services and a community to improve access to health services and quality of service delivery. Promotores can
diffuse and address misinformation in their communities and can be essential to debunk myths, increase trust,
and improve health outcomes; they have been at the forefront of addressing disparities in COVID testing and
vaccine uptake. Promotores de salud are uniquely positioned as trusted messengers to debunk vaccine
misinformation through strategic use of social media and infodemiology principles.
Dime La VerDAD (Verify, Debunk, and Disseminate) is an innovative social media capacity-building program
based on theoretical frameworks related to health communication that empowers promotores de salud to debunk
vaccine misinformation through the use of personal narratives on social media. The proposed work will use a
rigorous stepped wedge design to 1) deliver a scalable program of science communicators using an adapted
curriculum grounded in infodemiology, 2) evaluate how debunking misinformation is perceived on social media,
and 3) discern how use of personal narratives to enhance science communication can lead to changes in
opinions and behavior (vaccination rates) about COVID and influenza vaccines among Chicago’s predominantly
Hispanic communities.