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Experts agree that vaccination is the most effective way to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Nevertheless, vaccination rates have slowed nationwide and large segments of the population report an unwillingness to get vaccinated. We conducted an online survey experiment to investigate if endorsement from various types of leaders can encourage the unvaccinated population to receive the vaccine. We surveyed 709 unvaccinated registered voters in South Dakota in April, 2021 and presented them with identical messages endorsing vaccination from a political, religious, or medical leader. Our results show that messaging from a religious leader has a positive and statistically significant effect on interest in getting vaccinated, while messages from a political or medical leader have no statistically significant effect. These results strongly suggest that religious leaders are more effective messengers than other potential messengers and that public health officials would be well served to coordinate their efforts with leaders in faith communities.
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ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management