# Influence of Social Media, Social Networks, and Misinformation on Vaccine Acceptance Among Black and Latinx Individuals

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE · 2024 · $683,352

## Abstract

Abstract
 One of the most recent and significant public health problems deals with addressing vaccine hesitancy and
mis/disinformation. As new types of vaccines become effective and available, and bundled together, it
becomes increasingly important that researchers and health departments learn how to best communicate to
the public the correct science behind vaccines. Black/African American and Latinx populations might be
especially impacted by misinformation due to health inequity and low health literacy.
 However, despite extensive exposure to vaccine mis- and disinformation, many Blacks and Latinx are
resilient to misinformation and still choose to get vaccinated. This application takes a unique approach in
leveraging that positive outcome by identifying the predictors of Black and Latinx individuals who are frequently
exposed to misinformation, yet demonstrate broad vaccine acceptance for different vaccine types.
 Many factors play a role in vaccine acceptance/hesitancy, including social media and social networks, as
well as traditional multi-level factors such as mental health, political ideology, stigma, access to health
services, trust in the healthcare system, and educational opportunities. Our team has conducted extensive
research on the factors influencing attitudes and behaviors among Black and Latinx populations, for COVID-19
vaccine uptake, as well as ways to use digital data and tools to gain insights and intervene to improve them. In
this study, we seek to use similar artificial intelligence methods on social media, social network, and other
multi-level data to identify factors influencing vaccine acceptance among Black and Latinx populations.
 We seek to enroll 500 Black and Latinx individuals who are Twitter (X) followers of known vaccine-hesitant
influencers. We will collect baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up data on participants’ vaccine acceptance;
misinformation exposure; perceptions about vaccines, including willingness to receive future vaccines or enroll
in a vaccine clinical trial; digital contextual data (e.g., social media content; social network ties; and other multi-
level factors associated with vaccine knowledge and acceptance (e.g., political ideology, medical distrust,
structural factors). We will study the factors affecting acceptance of vaccines. We will also develop a tool to
visualize the data to inform researchers about how to add these new data/approaches to surveillance efforts.
Specifically, we seek to 1) Identify the relationship between social media data and vaccine acceptance among
Black and Latinx followers of influencers spreading vaccine-hesitant information, 2) Examine the influence of
social network factors on vaccine acceptance, and 3) Develop a visualization tool to graph and map contextual
data (e.g., social media content and geographic and network location of social network ties).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10946664
- **Project number:** 1R01MD019765-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Sean Young
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $683,352
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-09-20 → 2029-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10946664

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10946664, Influence of Social Media, Social Networks, and Misinformation on Vaccine Acceptance Among Black and Latinx Individuals (1R01MD019765-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10946664. Licensed CC0.

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