Emails Promoting COVID-19 Vaccination Among Healthcare Workers

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Vaccination Refusal
Communication

Interventions: Behavioral: Social Proof
Behavioral: Reframing
Behavioral: Scarcity Message

Registration Number: NCT04728594

Lead Sponsor: Geisinger Clinic

Brief Summary: In this evaluation, two versions of emails will be sent to Geisinger employees who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. A delayed-contact control group will be emailed after a delay of at least two days. The researchers hypothesize that either of the emails - which use content informed by behavioral nudge theory - will lead to more COVID-19 vaccinations than the delayed-contact control group.

Detailed Description: The researchers aim to evaluate the effectiveness of email reminders in promoting COVID-19 vaccinations among Geisinger employees. The project will compare two emails, which will vary in the subject line and email content. Both emails will test different approaches that draw from principles in behavioral science: social proof, reframing, and scarcity. Employees receiving these emails will be compared with employees in a delayed-contact group, who will not receive emails. Employees in the control group will later receive one of the emails.The responses to the emails will help determine the communications later sent to the control group.

All emails will ask recipients if they want to receive a COVID-19 vaccination. If they click on a hyperlink indicating yes, they will be forwarded to an online registration and scheduling homepage. If they click on a hyperlink indicating no, they will be forwarded to an online questionnaire surveying people about their main reason for declining the vaccine at this time. The questionnaire will automatically present information intended to assuage the specific concern that people endorse, followed by a hyperlink to the scheduling site.

The data will be analyzed with logistic regression models with the control group as the reference group, to compare the two email conditions versus the control group. This set of analyses will only be conducted for scheduling a vaccination appointment as opposed to email engagement outcomes (e.g., number of emails opened), which will not be applicable for the control group. A second set of logistic regression models predicting scheduling a vaccination appointment and email engagement will also be run, comparing the two email conditions against each other. The data will be examined two days later (to help decide which email to send to the delayed-control group) and four days later (when the policy for employee vaccination will change, making the content of the email irrelevant).

Update: The researchers looked at 3 days of data - as the emails to the delayed contact group were only sent at that time - and 4 days of data when the policy for employee vaccinations changed.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 9566

Inclusion Criteria

Employees at Geisinger Health System who have not gotten a COVID-19 vaccination

Exclusion Criteria

None

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Social Proof	Social Proof	This group will receive an email that points out that vaccine availability for employees will soon be limited. It also emphasizes how many fellow health care workers have been vaccinated. Seeing the behaviors of other people might encourage recipients to copy that behavior.
Social Proof	Scarcity Message	This group will receive an email that points out that vaccine availability for employees will soon be limited. It also emphasizes how many fellow health care workers have been vaccinated. Seeing the behaviors of other people might encourage recipients to copy that behavior.
Reframing Side Effects and Adverse Reactions	Reframing	This group will receive an email that points out that vaccine availability for employees will soon be limited. It also addresses concerns about the side effects and adverse reactions of the vaccine. Due to potentially overblown concerns about the vaccine caused by the salience of side effects in the (social) media, the email attempts to reframe the risks by explicitly noting the small possibility of being affected by serious side effects and by contrasting that to the more severe effects of COVID-19. As a result of this reframing, recipients might recalibrate their perception of risks and benefits and opt for vaccination.
Reframing Side Effects and Adverse Reactions	Scarcity Message	This group will receive an email that points out that vaccine availability for employees will soon be limited. It also addresses concerns about the side effects and adverse reactions of the vaccine. Due to potentially overblown concerns about the vaccine caused by the salience of side effects in the (social) media, the email attempts to reframe the risks by explicitly noting the small possibility of being affected by serious side effects and by contrasting that to the more severe effects of COVID-19. As a result of this reframing, recipients might recalibrate their perception of risks and benefits and opt for vaccination.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of Employees Who Scheduled Vaccination Appointments After 3 Days	3 days	Binary variable of a scheduled vaccination appointment 3 days after the emails were sent

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of Employees Who Opened Emails After 3 Days	3 days	Binary variable indicating whether the employee opened the email 3 days after the emails were sent
Number of Employees Who Clicked Scheduling Links After 3 Days	3 days	Binary variable indicating whether the employee clicked the link to schedule a vaccination appointment 3 days after the emails were sent