A gamified approach to combat vaccine hesitancy

Last registered on December 06, 2023

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

A gamified approach to combat vaccine hesitancy

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0012655

Initial registration date

December 05, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 06, 2023, 9:05 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Region

Country

Slovakia

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Dagmara Celik Katreniak

Affiliation

City, University of London

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Sayuri Rentschler

PI Affiliation

City, University of London

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Mireia Jofre-Bonet

PI Affiliation

Office for Health Economics

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Agne Suziedelyte

PI Affiliation

City, University of London

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-12-17

End date

2024-12-31

Keywords

Behavior, Health, Other

Additional Keywords

survey experiment, gamified intervention, social preferences, misinformation, empathy, vaccine hesitancy, vaccine confidence

JEL code(s)

D04, D91, D81, D83, I12, C93, C91

Secondary IDs

SRG22\221123, ETH2223-2051

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic made vaccine hesitancy the focus of global attention and concern and was listed as a global health threat by the WHO in 2019. In theory, a perfectly coordinated collective action can result in disease eradication. In reality, the "wait-and-see" strategy and self-centric behaviour precluded the elimination of COVID-19. Moreover, the "infodemic" around COVID-19 resulted in a WHO's call for increased resilience against misinformation. In this project, we propose developing and testing the impact of three online games designed around vaccine literacy, empathy, and misinformation training to increase vaccination intentions. We intend to bring evidence from countries with overall high/low vaccination rates (the UK and Slovakia to start with) to address concerns about the replicability of experiments and utilise across-country heterogeneities. Gamified interventions have become popular recently, but the evidence of their effectiveness remains scarce. Therefore, our results will also contribute to the discussion about digital media's role in strengthening vaccine confidence. Later, the games can be translated into multiple languages, finetuned to fit other vaccine-preventable diseases or more specific audiences, or used in nationwide interventions. We believe our research has substantial policy implications.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Celik Katreniak, Dagmara et al. 2023. "A gamified approach to combat vaccine hesitancy." AEA RCT Registry. December 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.12655-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

We propose two online games - misinformation and empathy games - to investigate whether active learning of (a) misinformation strategies, (b) affective empathy, or (c) improving vaccine literacy, can influence vaccine-hesitant intentions in general. The fourth game will be a placebo game with none of these components. We therefore aim to shed light on potential mechanisms underpinning vaccine hesitancy. Moreover,
certain information/news will be shared throughout the games with the participants, and we plan to alter the identity of the sender (e.g., a governmental body, a scientist, or a celebrity). This way, we will be able to understand whether the success of the intervention depends on the sender’s position in society.

Intervention (Hidden)

We will use text-based games built on a discussion with a chatbot represented by a character. While the misinformation game will be based on the topic of misinformation detection, the empathy game will explore the options of awakening empathy through examples and situations. Each game will serve either as a treatment (with an active misinformation or empathy training) or as a control group in which case the participants will only discuss the topics related to misinformation/empathy. We also plan to have a pure placebo group.

The participants will be randomized into treatment/control group by a computer. Stratification prior to the randomization based on the respondents' opinions on vaccination or climate change will help us balance the sample better.

Intervention Start Date

2023-12-21

Intervention End Date

2024-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Primary outcomes are: vaccination intentions, misinformation detection, subjective measure of ability to detect misinformation, empathy, propensity to free ride

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

We plan to proceed with heterogeneity analysis based on gender, age, vaccination status, opinion on climate change, subjects' social preferences and norms, demographics and political views.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We will cooperate with an external survey company using their online pool of people. The respondents will be directed to play our (treatment/placebo) game and then redirected back to the survey company. Randomization, after stratification on respondents' vaccination/climate change views, will be embedded in the design of the game. Decisions are incentivized and each participant will be included in a lottery in which the result of the game will determine the number of entries he/she has in the lottery (i.e., the higher the game result, the higher the chance to win the lottery).

Experimental Design Details

In a survey preceding the game, the participants will be asked a set of questions reveal-ing their general knowledge of and sentiment towards vaccines, their ability to detect misinformation, their social preferences, their tendency to free-ride, empathy, their subjective level of trust in governmental institutions and selected figures (e.g., scientists or GPs), and their age and gender and other demographic questions. We will stratify our sample using (some of) these variables to increase randomisation balance. Each participant will be randomly assigned to play either the “misinformation detection game”, the "empathy game" or the “placebo game”. In the misinformation detection game, participants will undergo training on spotting misinformation. In the empathy game, the participants will undergo empathy training, and in the placebo game, the participants will be involved in a simple discussion with our chatbot and no specific training will be provided.
In all games, participants’ fictive social media accounts are taken over by a hacker who posts true and false content. Their goal is to find out the truth and warn their friends if the information is inaccurate. Their identity is retrieved with the help of a cyber security expert and a chatbot. To keep participants motivated, a lottery will be held for an additional award if they win the game. All games will have the same experimental procedures, story, and goals.

Randomization Method

Randomization will be done by a computer, following a stratification based on vaccination/climate change opinion.

Randomization Unit

We will randomize on an individual level.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

We don't have clusters.

Sample size: planned number of observations

In total, in the initial stage, we should have the budget for cca 1100 participants for the experiment in the UK, and 1200 participants for the experiment in Slovakia.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

We plan to assign 30% of the sample to the control group and 70% to the treatment group (for each game in each country).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

With a current sample availability, we should be able to detect 0.08 change in outcomes measured as proportions (e.g., vaccine intentions) and cca change in means by 0.1-0.2 standard deviation for other measures.

Supporting Documents and Materials

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

IRB