Building Cognitive Resilience to Vaccine Misinformation Using Conversational AI: Evidence From a UK Randomised Trial
试验速览
- 阶段
- 不适用
- 状态
- 尚未招募
- 入组人数
- 1,000
- 主要终点
- Parental susceptibility to misinformation about childhood vaccination
研究概览
简要总结
This study aims to understand how parents and caregivers in the United Kingdom engage with information about childhood vaccination (routine vaccines for children and adolescents, excluding tetanus or international travel-related vaccines) and how tailored digital health tools can help address childhood vaccine misinformation.
详细描述
Global evidence shows that harmful and misleading information spreads rapidly online and can undermine trust in public health guidance. The World Health Organization has described this challenge as an "infodemic." In the United Kingdom (UK), most people obtain news through online platforms, and false information travels faster and further than accurate content. Vaccination is among the areas most affected. Many UK parents report encountering anti- vaccine claims online, and research shows that such exposure is linked to reduced vaccine confidence and lower uptake.
These concerns arise at a time when routine childhood vaccination rates in the UK have declined below WHO targets, contributing to renewed outbreaks of preventable diseases such as measles. Studies also show that simply providing more factual information is often insufficient to counter misinformation. Cognitive biases - such as confirmation bias, emotional reasoning, and low perceived risk - shape how people interpret health information. Systematic reviews suggest that pre-emptive approaches based on inoculation theory ("prebunking"), which warn people about common manipulation tactics and provide weakened examples of misinformation, can strengthen their ability to recognise and resist false claims.
At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence have created opportunities to deliver personalised, interactive health communication at scale. Emerging evidence indicates that brief conversations with AI-enabled, vaccine-focused chatbots can improve rumour recognition, encourage informed decision-making, and reduce belief in false narratives by providing personalised, interactive, and accessible information. Building on this evidence, this project will test whether an AI-based chatbot can help parents identify misleading claims about childhood vaccinations and increase their confidence in making childhood vaccination decisions.
This study aims to evaluate whether an AI-driven chatbot, MindShield, can strengthen resilience to vaccine misinformation by directly engaging the cognitive biases - such as confirmation bias, affective reasoning, and optimism bias - that shape vaccine risk perception and decision-making. We will first identify bias patterns underlying misinformation beliefs among parents in the UK. MindShield, grounded in inoculation theory, will then be evaluated in a randomised controlled trial to test whether short, bias-aware conversations improve bias recognition, misinformation discernment, and vaccine confidence compared with factual information alone. Finally, we will assess the scalability, acceptability, and ethical considerations of bias-targeted AI interventions for broader misinformation contexts. The study asks whether conversational AI can act as a cognitive safeguard, helping individuals recognise and resist manipulative narratives while supporting informed, confident health decisions.
We will conduct a randomised controlled trial with 1,000 parents or caregivers of children under 18 in the UK. Eligible participants will be recruited online and randomly assigned to either:
研究设计
- 研究类型
- Interventional
- 分配方式
- Randomized
- 干预模型
- Parallel
- 主要目的
- Health Services Research
- 盲法
- Double (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
入排标准
- 年龄范围
- 20 Years 至 —（Adult, Older Adult）
- 性别
- All
- 接受健康志愿者
- 是
入选标准
- •Parents or primary caregivers of at least one child under 18 years of age in the UK who is able to answer questions about their child's vaccination status;
- •Those who have basic literacy in English;
- •Those who have regular access to a digital device and the internet; and
- •Those who provide informed consent and agree to participate in the trial
排除标准
- •Those who have a visual/reading disability that could prevent their participation in or completion of the study activities
结局指标
主要结局
Parental susceptibility to misinformation about childhood vaccination
时间窗: From enrollment to the endpoint assessment immediately following the intervention during the same survey session (approximately 20-30 minutes)
The primary outcome of this study will assess parental susceptibility to misinformation about childhood vaccination, defined as parents' ability to accurately distinguish between true and false vaccine-related information. This will be measured using ten statements on childhood vaccines, including four true and six false, rumour-related statements. Two of the rumour-related statements correspond to each of the three misinformation tactics introduced by the chatbot and the UNICEF infographic. This measure reflects parents' ability to identify misinformation containing manipulation tactics they were inoculated against and to distinguish true from false information regarding childhood vaccination. Responses will be recorded as "True", "False", or "Don't know". A composite misinformation susceptibility score will be calculated based on the number of correct responses, with higher scores indicating greater ability to identify vaccine misinformation accurately.
次要结局
- Self-efficacy(From enrollment to the endpoint assessment immediately following the intervention during the same survey session (approximately 20-30 minutes))