The Challenge of Reaching the Unvaccinated
Efforts to address the pandemic remain challenged by widespread misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, especially among unvaccinated adults. We report in the latest Vaccine Monitor that unvaccinated adults and Republicans are much more likely to believe or be unsure about false information on COVID-19 when compared to vaccinated adults and Democrats.
We examined which news sources unvaccinated people trust on COVID-19 information. Vaccinated adults are at least twice as likely as unvaccinated adults to say they trust mainstream news sources like local and network TV stations, CNN, MSNBC and NPR for COVID-19 information. And while the unvaccinated are at least as likely as the vaccinated to trust conservative news sources (Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News), the share who trust those sources is relatively low across the board.
The upshot is that across eight news sources tested, fewer than a third of unvaccinated adults trust any of them for information on COVID-19. This, along with the increased political polarization of the public’s trusted news sources in recent years, underscores a huge barrier health officials face in reaching the unvaccinated with reliable information on the pandemic.