Vaccine misinformation and social media
Open accessAbstract
On Aug 19, 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined plans for a summit of social media firms to discuss how to promote accurate information about vaccination. The announcement accompanied the news that WHO no longer considers the UK to have eliminated measles. Coverage of the second dose of the measles–mumps– rubella (MMR) vaccine in the country has fallen to 87%, lower than the 95% required for herd immunity. “I am afraid people have just been listening to that superstitious mumbo-jumbo on the Internet, all that antivax stuff, and thinking that the MMR vaccine is a bad idea”, commented Johnson on a visit to a hospital in southwest England.
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Reaching required vaccination levels should not be assumed given well-documented evidence of vaccine hesitancy across the world, which is often fuelled by online and offline misinformation.
“Reaching these required vaccination levels should not be assumed given well-documented evidence of vaccine hesitancy across the world 17 , which is often fuelled by online and offline misinformation surrounding the importance, safety or effectiveness of vaccines 18-20 .”
From Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA (2021) · cites this paper as [19]
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Measuring the impact of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on vaccination intent in the UK and USA
Loomba, S., de Figueiredo, A., Piatek, S. J., de Graaf, K., & Larson, H. J. (2021) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01056-1 · Cited by 1,800 · see citing works
Islam, M. S., Kamal, A.-H. M., Kabir, A., Southern, D. L., Khan, S. H., Hasan, S. M. M., Sarkar, T., Sharmin, S., Das, S., Roy, T., et al. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0251605 · Cited by 535 · see citing works
“While acknowledging that numerous contextual, social and vaccine related factors can influence vaccine acceptance, including perceptions of the likelihood of getting the disease and risk perceptions towards the vaccine [27], the unsubstantiated claims of morbidity and mortality related to COVID-19 vaccine circulating…”
BackgroundRecommender systems and their ethical challenges
Milano, S., Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2020) · AI & SOCIETY · doi:10.1007/s00146-020-00950-y · Cited by 556 · see citing works
“A relatively recent but worrying example is the spread of propaganda against vaccines, which has been linked to a decrease in herd immunity (Burki 2019).”
BackgroundMurić, G., Wu, Y., & Ferrara, E. (2021) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/30642 · Cited by 320 · see citing works
Vaccine Hesitancy: Contemporary Issues and Historical Background
Nuwarda, R. F., Ramzan, I. M., Weekes, L., & Kayser, V. (2022) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines10101595 · Cited by 307 · see citing works
Online misinformation is linked to early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and refusal
Pierri, F., Perry, B. L., DeVerna, M. R., Yang, K.-C., Flammini, A., Menczer, F., & Bryden, J. (2022) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-022-10070-w · Cited by 264 · see citing works
Porter, E. V., & Wood, T. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2104235118 · Cited by 236 · see citing works
“Misinformation is said to have played a role in the Myanmar genocide (2), national elections (3), and the resurgence of measles (4).”
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An analysis of COVID-19 vaccine sentiments and opinions on Twitter
Yousefinaghani, S., Dara, R. A., Mubareka, S., Papadopoulos, A., & Sharif, S. (2021) · International Journal of Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2021.05.059 · Cited by 236 · see citing works
“Previous studies have correlated activities on social media to vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine movements (Tangherlini et al., 2016; Broniatowski et al., 2018; Burki, 2019; Johnson et al., 2020).”
BackgroundIndividual determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
Gerretsen, P., Kim, J., Caravaggio, F., Quilty, L. C., Sanches, M., Wells, S. L., Brown, E. E., Agic, B., Pollock, B. G., & Graff‐Guerrero, A. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0258462 · Cited by 207 · see citing works
“Multi-component public health strategies are likely required to address the inevitable emergence of vaccine misinformation via social media specific to any novel COVID-19 vaccine [24].”
BackgroundThe Reach and Accuracy of Information on Autism on TikTok
Aragon-Guevara, D., Castle, G., Sheridan, E., & Vivanti, G. (2023) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1007/s10803-023-06084-6 · Cited by 116 · see citing works
“…and social media platforms have been instrumental to the widespread dissemination of misleading information on the link between vaccines and autism, which undermined trust in life-saving vaccination programs and contributed to preventable infections and diseases in young children (Burki, 2019).”
Behavioural interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation on social media
Ruggeri, K., Vanderslott, S., Yamada, Y., Argyris, Y., Većkalov, B., Boggio, P., Fallah, M., Stock, F., & Hertwig, R. (2024) · British medical journal · doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-076542 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
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Zhang, K. C., Fang, Y., Cao, H., Chen, H., Hu, T., Chen, Y., Zhou, X., & Wang, Z. J. (2021) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/24673 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
“Across countries, it is common to encounter vaccination-related information on social media [38].”
BackgroundCharacterizing polarization in online vaccine discourse—A large-scale study
Mønsted, B., & Lehmann, S. (2022) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0263746 · Cited by 95 · see citing works
Is pro-Kremlin Disinformation Effective? Evidence from Ukraine
Erlich, A., & Garner, C. (2021) · The International Journal of Press/Politics · doi:10.1177/19401612211045221 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Loomba, S., de Figueiredo, A., Piatek, S. J., de Graaf, K., & Larson, H. J. (2020) · medRxiv · doi:10.1101/2020.10.22.20217513 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
“…vaccination levels should not be assumed given well-documented evidence of vaccine hesitancy across the world (de Figueiredo, 2020), which is often fuelled by online and offline misinformation surrounding the importance, safety, or effectiveness of vaccines (Bellaby 2003; Burki 2019; Lo 2017).”
BackgroundMisinformation During the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Cultural, Social and Political Entanglements
Leng, Y., Zhai, Y., Sun, S., Wu, Y., Selzer, J., Strover, S., Zhang, H., Chen, A., & Ding, Y. (2021) · IEEE Transactions on Big Data · doi:10.1109/tbdata.2021.3055758 · Cited by 74 · see citing works
“During a pandemic time rife with uncertainty and anxiety, people aremore likely to encounter and subsequently become harmed from misinformation [11].”
BackgroundDetecting Medical Misinformation on Social Media Using Multimodal Deep Learning
Wang, Z., Yin, Z., & Argyris, Y. A. (2020) · IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics · doi:10.1109/jbhi.2020.3037027 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
“Social media applications have thus contributed at least in part to the rapid growth of the antivaccine movement [2].”
BackgroundOne Year of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Twitter: Longitudinal Study
Pierri, F., Deverna, M. R., Yang, K.-C., Axelrod, D., Bryden, J., & Menczer, F. (2022) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/42227 · Cited by 82 · see citing works
CoVaxxy: A Collection of English-Language Twitter Posts About COVID-19 Vaccines
DeVerna, M., Pierri, F., Truong, B. T., et al. (2021) · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · doi:10.1609/icwsm.v15i1.18122 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
“There is a growing body of evidence linking social media and the anti-vaccination movement to vaccine hesi-tancy (Broniatowski et al. 2018; Burki 2019; Johnson et al. 2020).”
BackgroundVivion, M., Anassour-Laouan-Sidi, E., Betsch, C., Dionne, M., Dubé, È., Driedger, S., Gagnon, D., Graham, J., Greyson, D. L., Hamel, D., et al. (2022) · Journal of Communication in Healthcare · doi:10.1080/17538068.2022.2044606 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Epidemic outbreaks with adaptive prevention on complex networks
Silva, D. H., Anteneodo, C., & Ferreira, S. C. (2022) · Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation · doi:10.1016/j.cnsns.2022.106877 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
“of content about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemics in social media has raised questions about whether or not phenomena such as echo chambers, in which communication is highly limited to a group of people who share similar views on a topic, might influence the prophylaxis behavior of these individuals [14, 24, 25].”
BackgroundWill vaccination refusal prolong the war on SARS-CoV-2?
Marčec, R., Majta, M., & Likić, R. (2020) · Postgraduate Medical Journal · doi:10.1136/postgradmedj-2020-138903 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Crowdfunding Cannabidiol (CBD) for Cancer: Hype and Misinformation on GoFundMe
Zenone, M. A., Snyder, J., & Caulfield, T. (2020) · American Journal of Public Health · doi:10.2105/ajph.2020.305768 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Marketplaces of Misinformation: A Study of How Vaccine Misinformation Is Legitimized on Social Media
Domenico, G. D., Nunan, D., & Pitardi, V. (2022) · Journal of Public Policy & Marketing · doi:10.1177/07439156221103860 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
“Health care professionals play an important role in the validation of health information, as individuals rely on these experts to interpret complex information and place a high level of trust in these professionals (Burki 2019).”
BackgroundAdeyanju, G. C., Sprengholz, P., Betsch, C., & Essoh, T.-A. (2021) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines9111231 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Kokas, A. (2022) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197620502.001.0001 · Cited by 51 · see citing works
Zhou, L., Ampon-Wireko, S., Xu, X., Quansah, P. E., & Larnyo, E. (2022) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0263610 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Niu, Q., Liu, J., Kato, M., Shinohara, Y., Matsumura, N., Aoyama, T., & Nagai‐Tanima, M. (2022) · JMIR Infodemiology · doi:10.2196/32335 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
“Several studies have linked social media activity to vaccine hesitancy and antivaccine campaigns [21-30].”
BackgroundRoyston, G., Pakenham-Walsh, N. M., & Zielinski, C. (2020) · BMJ Global Health · doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002475 · Cited by 50 · see citing works
Cata-Preta, B. O., Wehrmeister, F. C., Santos, T. M., Barros, A. J. D., & Victora, C. G. (2020) · American Journal of Preventive Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2020.07.028 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Nomhwange, T., Wariri, O., Nkereuwem, E., Olanrewaju, S., Nwosu, N., Adamu, U., Danjuma, E., Onuaguluchi, N., Enegela, J. E., Nomhwange, E., et al. (2022) · EClinicalMedicine · doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101499 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
“30 While social media was used by global health bodies to share information during the pandemic, more action should be taken to curb the spread of fake news by identifying and removing disease trolls while ensuring that accurate information are easily accessible.”
Wang, Z. J., She, R., Chen, X., Li, L., Li, L., Huang, Z., & Lau, J. T. F. (2021) · Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics · doi:10.1080/21645515.2021.1917232 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
“At interpersonal level, it is common to obtain vaccinationrelated information on social media.(23) Previous studies showed that over 60% of the people in the United States used social media as a common source to obtain information related to HPV and influenza vaccination.”
Backgroundde Oliveira, T. M., Quinan, R., & Toth, J. P. (2020) · Reciis · doi:10.29397/reciis.v14i1.1988 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Mitigating Vaccine Hesitancy and Building Trust to Prevent Future Measles Outbreaks in England
Thompson, S., Meyer, J. C., Burnett, R. J., & Campbell, S. (2023) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines11020288 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
Udaya Bahadur, B. C., Pokharel, S., Munikar, S., Wagle, C. N., Adhikary, P., Shahi, B. B., Thapa, C., Bhandari, R. P., Adhikari, B., & Thapa, K. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0254126 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Drawing light from the pandemic: Rethinking strategies for health policy and beyond
Forman, R., Muscat, N. A., Kirkby, V., Lessof, S., Nathan, N. L., Pastorino, G., Permanand, G., van Schalkwyk, M. C., Torbica, A., Busse, R., et al. (2021) · Health Policy · doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.12.001 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and rejection in an adult population in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Fojnica, A., Osmanović, A., Đuzić, N., Fejzic, A., Mekić, E., Gromilić, Z., Muhović, I., & Kurtović-Kozarić, A. (2022) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0264754 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
“In our survey, media platforms and social networks were the main sources of information during the pandemic, which makes the high COVID-19 vaccine rejection understandable [16].”
BackgroundGu, J., Dor, A., Li, K., Broniatowski, D. A., Hatheway, M., Fritz, L., & Abroms, L. C. (2022) · Vaccine · doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.062 · Cited by 35 · see citing works
Liprandi, Á. S., Liprandi, M. I. S., Zaidel, E. J., Aisenberg, G. M., Baranchuk, A. M., Barbosa, E. C. D., Sánchez, G. B., Alexander, B., Lanas, F. T., López-Santi, R., et al. (2021) · Global Heart · doi:10.5334/gh.1069 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
Abdel‐Qader, D. H., Hayajneh, W. A., Albassam, A., et al. (2021) · Vaccine X · doi:10.1016/j.jvacx.2021.100135 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
“Because previous studies linked between social media websites and vaccine hesi-tancy and resistance [35,36], our coaching method focused on taking information about vaccines only from health professionals and relevant government agencies.”
Wang, Z. J., Fang, Y., Ip, M., Lau, M. M. C., & Lau, J. T. F. (2020) · Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics · doi:10.1080/21645515.2020.1776545 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
“Across countries, it is common to encounter information related to vaccination on social media.(26) In addition, older adults’ attitudes toward PV and their decision whether to take up PV may be influenced by other social network-related factors such as their peers’ attitudes and behaviors.”
BackgroundThaker, J. J., & Subramanian, A. (2021) · Frontiers in Communication · doi:10.3389/fcomm.2021.721982 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
“These concerns are aided by widely circulating false or misleading information on social media platforms about the origins of the virus, distrust with government and experts, and risks and long-term effects of COVID-19 vaccine, among others (Vicario et al., 2016; Burki, 2019; TokojimaMachado et al., 2020).”
BackgroundKhademizadeh, S., Danesh, F., Esmaeili, S., Lund, B. D., & Santos-d’Amorim, K. (2023) · Accountability in Research · doi:10.1080/08989621.2023.2223996 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines on social media in Canada
Rotolo, B., Dubé, È., Vivion, M., MacDonald, S. E., & Meyer, S. B. (2022) · Vaccine · doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.03.024 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
A Vision for University Biology Education for Non-science Majors
Gormally, C., & Heil, A. (2022) · CBE—Life Sciences Education · doi:10.1187/cbe.21-12-0338 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“While Internet and social media access increase individuals’ access to scientific information, these platforms can also foster the spread of misinformation (Burki, 2019; Smith and Seitz, 2019).”
BackgroundThe relation between digital literacy, cyberchondria, and parents' attitudes to childhood vaccines
Top, F. Ü., Çevik, C., & Güneş, N. B. (2023) · Journal of Pediatric Nursing · doi:10.1016/j.pedn.2023.01.006 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Lee, J., Kim, J. W., & Lee, H. Y. (2022) · Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10410236.2022.2031452 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“…increasing number of pro-vaccination content has been observed on social media in recent years (Donzelli et al., 2018), continuously low public confidence in MMR vaccination is attributed to the prevalence and amplification of anti-vaccine misinformation across social media platforms (Burki, 2019).”
BackgroundInfluentialUtami, A., Margawati, A., Pramono, D., Nugraheni, A., & Pramudo, S. G. (2022) · Patient Preference and Adherence · doi:10.2147/ppa.s365663 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“But, the rise of social media has given anti-vaccination views, an unprecedented opportunity to grow, potentially leading to misinformation.(37) A previous study has found that rural residents had lower access to online health information like social media compared to urban residents.”
BackgroundCassidy, C. E., Langley, J. E., Steenbeek, A., Taylor, B., Kennie‐Kaulbach, N., Grantmyre, H., Stratton, L., & Isenor, J. E. (2021) · Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics · doi:10.1080/21645515.2021.1954444 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Aggressive behaviour of anti-vaxxers and their toxic replies in English and Japanese
Miyazaki, K., Uchiba, T., Tanaka, K., & Sasahara, K. (2022) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01245-x · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“…advocates, or anti-vaxxers, who spread misinformation and anxiety-provoking information, is an urgent social problem, as it may delay or hinder the widespread of vaccination (Burki, 2019) and the achievement of herd immunity necessary for a post-pandemic world (Fontanet and Cauchemez, 2020).”
Tactics, Threats & Targets: Modeling Disinformation and its Mitigation
Mirza, M. S., Begum, L., Niu, L., Pardo, S., Abouzeid, A., Papotti, P., & Pöpper, C. (2023) · Network and Distributed System Security Symposium · doi:10.14722/ndss.2023.23657 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“For example, disinformation campaigns were used to sway the British public to vote for Brexit [86]; disinformation on the integrity of the US 2020 elections incited an armed mob, leading to loss of life [85]; and anti-vaccination campaigns have led to Measles outbreaks [11] and are potentially prolonging the Covid-19…”
MethodLenti, J., Mejova, Y., Kalimeri, K., Panisson, A., Paolotti, D., Tizzani, M., & Starnini, M. (2023) · JMIR Infodemiology · doi:10.2196/44714 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
“Among the many factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy is the spread of misinformation, especially on the web [6,7].”
BackgroundKondylakis, H., Axenie, C., Bastola, D. K., Katehakis, D. G., Kouroubali, A., Kurz, D., Larburu, N., Macía, I., Maguire, R., Maramis, C., et al. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/22034 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
“With an increasing number of people falling victims to medical misinformation and propaganda on the internet [148], advocacy to develop reporting and assessment standards has been long overdue.”
BackgroundHarnessing Social Media in the Modelling of Pandemics—Challenges and Opportunities
Sooknanan, J., & Mays, N. (2021) · Bulletin of Mathematical Biology · doi:10.1007/s11538-021-00895-3 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
“Consequently, users may reinforce and amplify each other’s opinions and attitudes—both positive and negative—on any course of action to form “online echo chambers” (Burki 2019) unrelated to their consumption of conventional media messages.”
BackgroundKamal, A.-H. M., Sarkar, T., Khan, M. M., Roy, S. K., Khan, S. H., Hasan, S. M. M., Hossain, M. S., Dell, C. A., Seale, H., & Islam, M. S. (2021) · Journal of Health Management · doi:10.1177/09735984211050691 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
“More recently, and specifically with COVID-19, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and mistrust have been identified as potential factors that may influence individuals’ decision to not vaccinate (Burki, 2019; Guidry et al., 2020; Islam et al., 2021; Roozenbeek et al., 2020).”
BackgroundInvestigating COVID-19 Vaccine Communication and Misinformation on TikTok: Cross-sectional Study
van Kampen, K., Laski, J., Herman, G., & Chan, T. M. (2022) · JMIR Infodemiology · doi:10.2196/38316 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“Nevertheless, these platforms continue to be ongoing sources of both misinformation and disinformation, revealing a need to understand the vaccine discourse on these platforms [13].”
BackgroundBenis, A., Chatsubi, A., Levner, E., & Ashkenazi, S. (2021) · JMIR Infodemiology · doi:10.2196/31983 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
“Nevertheless, it is essential to take into account that vaccination opponents used various tools and communication discourse, not evocating the “anti-vaxx” term itself [68-70].”
Reñosa, M. D. C., Wachinger, J., Bärnighausen, K., Aligato, M. F., Landicho‐Guevarra, J., Endoma, V., Landicho, J., Bravo, T. A., Demonteverde, M. P., Guevarra, J. R., et al. (2021) · BMJ Open · doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046814 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Emerging and endemic zoonotic diseases: surveillance and diagnostics
Heuer, C., Halpin, K., & Stevenson, M. A. (2021) · Scientific and Technical Review (World Organisation for Animal Health) · doi:10.20506/rst.40.1.3212 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“Social media groups with a distrust in biomedical science, particularly in relation to control measures (such as mass vaccination campaigns), have an unprecedented ability to influence the opinion and healthcare-seeking behaviour of others (27).”
BackgroundCOVID-19 Vaccine Perception in South Korea: Web Crawling Approach
Lee, H., Noh, E. B., Park, S. J., Nam, H. K., Lee, T. H., Lee, G. R., & Nam, E. W. (2021) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/31409 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“However, because clinical trials for vaccines advanced quickly, and vaccines were approved in accelerated processes over a short period, negative information regarding COVID-19 vaccines has proliferated [6], due to which the number of people refusing to be vaccinated has increased.”
BackgroundRestrepo, N. J., Illari, L., Leahy, R., Sear, R. F., Lupu, Y., & Johnson, N. F. (2021) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2021.3138982 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Ethical Considerations in Pediatricians’ Use of Social Media
Macauley, R. C., Elster, N. R., Fanaroff, J. M., Basak, R. B., Geis, G. M., Laventhal, N. T., Opel, D. J., Statter, M. B., Bondi, S. A., Oken, R. L., et al. (2021) · PEDIATRICS · doi:10.1542/peds.2020-049685 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
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Antivaccine Messages on Facebook: Preliminary Audit
Dhaliwal, D., & Mannion, C. (2020) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/18878 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“The antivaccine campaign has unfortunately used social media as a vessel to spread misinformation to users, especially parents [4-7,9,11-13,26,27,29,30,32,37,40,41,46,47].”
BackgroundDeVerna, M., Pierri, F., Ahn, Y., Fortunato, S., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. (2025) · npj Complexity · doi:10.1038/s44260-025-00038-y · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“In a scenario where the misinformation spreads more widely (purple nodes in E ), more individuals get infected (yellow nodes in F ).”
Jusril, H., Rachmi, C. N., Amin, M. R., et al. (2022) · BMJ Open · doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-058570 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
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“False vaccination information is spreading rapidly through social media, causing general distrust and safety concerns, thereby worsening vaccination hesitancy [13] and disease outcomes [14].”
Ahmed, W., Das, R., Vidal-Alaball, J., Hardey, M., & Fuster-Casanovas, A. (2022) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/43497 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 [1], inconsistent public health messaging has enhanced the appeal of antivaccine and vaccination hesitancy movements on social media [2].”
Calderon, E. D. V., James, T. L., & Lowry, P. B. (2023) · Data and Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.dim.2023.100042 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
“Specifically, we ensured participant anonymity and randomized the presentation of the items to the participants, as recommended by the literature [3, 16, 19] .”
BackgroundMethodYang, E. F., Kriss, L. A., & Sun, Y. (2023) · Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10410236.2023.2259621 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
“Though spreading false information on social media undoubtedly harms vaccine uptake, some messages are neither disinformation nor misinformation, instead falling into the subjective and emotional realm (Burki, 2019).”
Rzymski, P., Zarębska‐Michaluk, D., Parczewski, M., Genowska, A., Poniedziałek, B., Strukčinskienė, B., Moniuszko-Malinowska, A. M., & Flisiak, R. (2024) · Journal of Medical Virology · doi:10.1002/jmv.29651 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Liprandi, Á. S., Zaidel, E. J., López-Santi, R., Araujo, J. J., González, M. A. B., Busso, J. M., Cabral, L., Camilletti, J., Erriest, J., Flores, R., et al. (2021) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines9020123 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
The impact of toxic trolling comments on anti-vaccine YouTube videos
Miyazaki, K., Uchiba, T., Kwak, H., An, J., & Sasahara, K. (2024) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-024-54925-w · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“The anti-vaccine movement may lead to widespread vaccine hesitancy, resulting in decreased vaccination rates and ultimately reducing the overall societal benefit 3 .”
Health Promotion, Health Literacy and Vaccine Hesitancy: The Role of Humanoid Robots
McIntosh, C., Elvin, A., Smyth, W., Birks, M., & Nagle, C. (2022) · Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financing · doi:10.1177/00469580221078515 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Parental perspectives on research for Down syndrome
White, A. N., Chevette, M., Hillerstrom, H., & Esbensen, A. J. (2021) · Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities · doi:10.1111/jar.12937 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“Unfortunately, the information offered through Google, non-profit websites and printed materials is often over-generalised and damaging the impact of how research is communicated to the community (Burki, 2019; Grimshaw et al., 2012).”
Losing the battle over best-science guidance early in a crisis: COVID-19 and beyond
Illari, L., Restrepo, N. J., & Johnson, N. F. (2022) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.abo8017 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Wu, Y., Kuru, O., Kim, D. H., & Kim, S. (2023) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph20010891 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Analyzing the changing landscape of the Covid-19 vaccine debate on Twitter
Santoro, A., Galeazzi, A., Scantamburlo, T., Baronchelli, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Zollo, F. (2023) · Social Network Analysis and Mining · doi:10.1007/s13278-023-01127-3 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“One of the prominent topics discussed by reliable sources was Covid-19 official reports.”
InfluentialCoVaxxy: A global collection of English Twitter posts about COVID-19 vaccines
DeVerna, M., Pierri, F., Truong, B. T., et al. (2021) · Europe PMC (PubMed Central) · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Misinformation Due to Asymmetric Information Sharing
Buechel, B., Klößner, S., Meng, F., & Nassar, A. (2022) · Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control · doi:10.1016/j.jedc.2023.104641 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Mathematical modeling of disinformation and effectiveness of mitigation policies
Butts, D., Bollman, S. A., & Murillo, M. S. (2023) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-023-45710-2 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Analysis of People’s Attitude Toward COVID-19 Vaccine and Its Information Sources in Thailand
Yoda, T., Suksatit, B., Tokuda, M., & Katsuyama, H. (2022) · Cureus · doi:10.7759/cureus.22215 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Compared with traditional communication channels, social media offers an unprecedented opportunity to spread anti-vaccination messages and allow communities to form around the anti-vaccine sentiment [5].”
BackgroundChallenges of Equitable Vaccine Distribution in the COVID-19 PandemicPreprint
Bae, J., Gandhi, D., Kothari, J., et al. (2020) · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2012.12263 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“Social media is the primary breeding ground of such misinformation [15].”
BackgroundRapid Review: Perceptions of COVID-19 Vaccines in South Africa
de Jong, T. R. (2022) · doi:10.19088/sshap.2021.021 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Unfried, K., & Priebe, J. (2024) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0301818 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Media Exposure and Media Credibility Influencing Public Intentions for Influenza Vaccination
Ning, C., Guo, D., Wu, J., & Gao, H. (2022) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines10040526 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Oche, O. M., Adamu, H., Yahaya, M., Illo, H. G., Danmadami, A. M., Ijapa, A., Wali, A., Yusuf, H., Muhammad, H., & Aji, A. (2022) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278332 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“However, because clinical trials for vaccines advanced very rapidly, and vaccines were approved in accelerated processes over a short period, negative information regarding COVID-19 vaccines has proliferated [42], due to which the number of people refusing to be vaccinated has increased.”
BackgroundMaharlouei, N., Hosseinpour, P., Erfani, A., Shahriarirad, R., Shahraki, H. R., Rezaianzadeh, A., & Lankarani, K. B. (2022) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278967 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“In addition, the overwhelming amount of misinformation on social media has made it harder for people to trust the vaccine [22, 23].”
BackgroundCOVID-19 Vaccination: crucial roles and opportunities for the mental health professionals
Banerjee, D., Mukhopadhyay, S., Asmeen, M. S., & Javed, A. (2021) · Cambridge Prisms Global Mental Health · doi:10.1017/gmh.2021.25 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“Vaccinations against pneumococcal infection, poliomyelitis, influenza and tuberculosis have all been challenged by medical misinformation (Burki, 2019).”
BackgroundCostantino, A., Morlacchi, L. C., Donato, M. F., Gramegna, A., Farina, E., Dibenedetto, C., Campise, M., Redaelli, M., Perego, M., Alfieri, C., et al. (2022) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines10111899 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
HPV Vaccination Information Access, Needs, and Preferences Among Black and Hispanic Mothers
Kohler, R. E., Wagner, R. B., Vega, J., Rivera, Y. M., Kantor, L. M., & Greene, K. L. (2024) · Journal of Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10810730.2024.2386594 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“Identifying knowledge gaps and easing parents’ main concerns remain important to reduce hesitancy (Reno et al., 2018, 2019).”
O’Brien, G. E., Ganjigunta, R., & Dhillon, P. S. (2024) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/56651 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“Specifically, we use the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing vaccine rollout as a probe, as there is a sizable foundation of research tools available for analyzing this type of social media content—particularly on Twitter, where we locate our study [44-47].”
Conspiracism and government distrust predict COVID-19 vaccine refusal
Zilinsky, J., & Theocharis, Y. (2025) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-025-05267-z · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, these authorities made concerted appeals to citizens to engage in protective behaviors (Kritzinger et al., 2021) and to get vaccinated, and rejections of these appeals from epistemic and political authorities have been the subject of intense debate and schol…”
InfluentialA BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS ON THE DISSEMINATION OF COVID -19 VACCINE MISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Mahajan, R., & Gupta, P. (2021) · Journal of Content Community and Communication · doi:10.31620/jccc.12.21/18 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“grow around anti-vaccine sentiments (Burki, 2019).”
BackgroundVaccinEU: COVID-19 Vaccine Conversations on Twitter in French, German and Italian
Giovanni, M. D., Pierri, F., Torres-Lugo, C., & Brambilla, M. (2022) · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · doi:10.1609/icwsm.v16i1.19374 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“Research in the past highlighted the role of online social media in promoting and amplifying negative views about vaccines (Burki 2019; Broniatowski et al. 2018; Johnson et al. 2020).”
BackgroundMarx, J., Blanco, B., Amaral, A. D. R., Stieglitz, S., & Bittencourt, M. C. A. (2023) · Internet Research · doi:10.1108/intr-07-2022-0573 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Interactive crowdsourcing to fact-check politicians.
Espina-Mairal, S., Bustos, F., Solovey, G., & Navajas, J. (2023) · Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied · doi:10.1037/xap0000492 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Vaccination Status and Attitudes towards Vaccines in a Cohort of Patients with Celiac Disease
Costantino, A., Michelon, M., Roncoroni, L., Doneda, L., Lombardo, V., Costantino, C., Vecchi, M. L., & Elli, L. (2022) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines10081199 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
- Authors
- Burki, T.
- Corresponding author
- Burki, Talha
- Venue
- The Lancet Digital Health
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-10
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e258-e259
- ISSN
- 2589-7500 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2977219551
- Cited by
- 243
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 52 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 71.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- The Lancet Digital Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Health › Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Keywords
- vaccine misinformation, social media, anti-vaccine movement, MMR vaccine, herd immunity, vaccination coverage, measles elimination, misinformation countermeasures, online health information
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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