Effectiveness of a Mayan language social media campaign on COVID-19 vaccine beliefs in Guatemala

Prior evidence, including formative work supporting the development of this study, suggests there is widespread vaccine hesitancy among Indigenous communities in Guatemala, fueled by mistrust in the health system, lack of official information, and the circulation of myths and misinformation. We will test the effectiveness of a video-based social media campaign that provides a basic overview of the science behind COVID-19 vaccines and addresses prevalent myths and misinformation being shared in target communities. A series of animated videos will be promoted through Facebook Ads and randomized at the individual level across Facebook users throughout the entire country. To investigate the effectiveness of Mayan language content, we are testing three treatment arms – visually identical videos in the 1) Spanish language, 2) K'iche' language, and 3) Kaqchikel language. Our primary outcomes are responses to two attitudinal questions collected via Facebook polling: 1) How safe do you think a COVID-19 vaccine is for people like you? (options: very safe, somewhat safe, barely safe, not safe, don’t know); and 2) When you think of most people whose opinion you value, how much would they approve of people getting a COVID-19 vaccine? (options: definitely approve, mostly approve, somewhat approve, not at all approve, don’t know). We will measure effects of the three treatment arms across Spanish speakers (including K’iche’ and Kaqchikel speakers who also speak Spanish). We will also measure the effectiveness of K’iche vs. Spanish content among K’iche speakers and Kaqchikel vs. Spanish content for Kaqchikel speakers.