RAPID: COVID-19 Information Exposure and Messaging Effects

  • Funded by National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Total publications:0 publications

Grant number: unknown

Grant search

Key facts

  • Disease

    COVID-19
  • Start & end year

    2020
    2021
  • Known Financial Commitments (USD)

    $199,027
  • Funder

    National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Principal Investigator

    Brendan Nyhan
  • Research Location

    United States of America
  • Lead Research Institution

    Dartmouth College
  • Research Priority Alignment

    N/A
  • Research Category

    Policies for public health, disease control & community resilience

  • Research Subcategory

    Approaches to public health interventions

  • Special Interest Tags

    N/A

  • Study Type

    Non-Clinical

  • Clinical Trial Details

    N/A

  • Broad Policy Alignment

    Pending

  • Age Group

    Unspecified

  • Vulnerable Population

    Unspecified

  • Occupations of Interest

    Unspecified

Abstract

Fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires understanding what information people have about the disease and how officials can improve public knowledge and encourage behaviors that will protect public health. By measuring COVID-19 beliefs and attitudes, this study provides insights into public beliefs about COVID-19 and the efficacy of government and health messaging about the pandemic, and how those quantities change over time. In addition to measuring respondents? knowledge about COVID-19, the research team assesses how people?s online media consumption is related to their patterns of knowledge. Finally, the study provides information about the effectiveness of public health messages on respondents? knowledge about COVID-19 and support for public health policies.

The research team is collecting behavioral and survey data from Americans in a multi-wave nationally representative survey. This survey includes oversamples of respondents who live in areas with high numbers of COVID-19 cases and who have voluntarily agreed to provide data on their online browsing activity. Each wave measures both the prevalence of different types of beliefs about COVID-19 and reported support for and adherence to recommendations from public health authorities. To evaluate responses to information from public health officials, the second survey wave includes a randomized experiment evaluating the effects of messaging from health and medical authorities. Finally, the study characterizes the information people consume online about the pandemic by analyzing the behavioral data provided by respondents using a combination of human-coded and machine learning approaches.

This project is jointly funded by DRMS and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.