Disabilities and the Digital Divide: Assessing Web Accessibility, Readability, and Mobility of Popular Health Websites.

With recognition of (1) unmet health information needs of persons with disabilities; and (2) anticipated growth of the persons with disabilities population, we seek to better understand the relative general accessibility of health information on popular, highly ranked health websites. That is, instead of examining the efficacy and impact of specific types of health message appeals, the present investigation assesses the functional performance of specific content platforms of health websites. We examine the components of accessing and understanding health information through the lens of web and language accessibility, readability, and mobility. A total of 139 health-focused websites were randomly sampled from the Alexa® "Top Sites" global ranking system which uses web traffic data to rank the most popular websites. The sample was processed using computer aided software (e.g., WEB AIM, Web FX & Google Test My Site.) We found 91.3% of sampled home pages had detectable accessibility failures. The most common accessibility failures were low contrast, empty links, missing ALT text, empty buttons, and missing form labels. Most websites offered neither an accessibility policy statement nor an option for automated language translation service, likely impacting those with limited English proficiency (LEP). The implications for these findings are reviewed with discussion and limitations provided.

Inoculation's efficacy with young adults' risky behaviors: can inoculation confer cross-protection over related but untreated issues?

This investigation examined the potential of inoculation to protect young adults' attitudes from pressures to engage in risky behaviors (unprotected sex and binge drinking) as well as inoculation's efficacy in conferring umbrella protection (cross-protection) over related, but experimentally untreated, attitudes. A three-phase experiment was conducted involving 120 participants. The results revealed that inoculation can protect the attitudes of young adults from counterattitudinal pressures to engage in unprotected sex (treated issue) and binge drinking (untreated issue). Practical applications of these findings are explored, including the use of inoculation when designing health messages and more thorough assessments of health campaigns designed to discourage risky behaviors.

Inoculating Against Fake News About COVID-19.

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been accompanied by a large amount of misleading and false information about the virus, especially on social media. In this article, we explore the coronavirus "infodemic" and how behavioral scientists may seek to address this problem. We detail the scope of the problem and discuss the negative influence that COVID-19 misinformation can have on the widespread adoption of health protective behaviors in the population. In response, we explore how insights from the behavioral sciences can be leveraged to manage an effective societal response to curb the spread of misinformation about the virus. In particular, we discuss the theory of psychological inoculation (or prebunking) as an efficient vehicle for conferring large-scale psychological resistance against fake news.

Re-Thinking Anxiety: Using Inoculation Messages to Reduce and Reinterpret Public Speaking Fears.

Inoculation theory offers a framework for protecting individuals against challenges to an existing attitude, belief, or state. Despite the prevalence and damaging effects of public speaking anxiety, inoculation strategies have yet to be used to help individuals remain calm before and during public speaking. We aimed to test the effectiveness of an inoculation message for reducing the onset of public speaking anxiety, and helping presenters interpret their speech-related anxiety more positively. Participants (Mage = 20.14, SD = 2.72) received either an inoculation (n = 102) or control (n = 128) message prior to engaging a public speaking task and reported a range of anxiety-related perceptions. Accounting for personality characteristics and perceptions of task importance, and relative to control participants, those who received the inoculation message reported significantly lower pre-task anxiety, and following the task, reported that they had experienced lower somatic anxiety, and that the inoculation message had caused them to view their nerves in a less debilitating light. Inoculation messages may be an effective strategy for helping participants reframe and reduce their apprehension about public speaking, and investigating their efficacy in other stress-inducing contexts may be worthwhile.

Persuading Others to Avoid Persuasion: Inoculation Theory and Resistant Health Attitudes.

Inoculation theory, a theory of conferring resistance to persuasive influence, has established efficacy as a messaging strategy in the health domain. In fact, the earliest research on the theory in the 1960s involved health issues to build empirical support for tenets in the inoculation framework. Over the ensuing decades, scholars have further examined the effectiveness of inoculation-based messages at creating robust positive health attitudes. We overview these efforts, highlight the structure of typical inoculation-based health messages, and describe the similarities and differences between this method of counter-persuasion and other preparatory techniques commonly employed by health researchers and practitioners. Finally, we consider contexts in which inoculation-oriented health messages could be most useful, and describe how the health domain could offer a useful scaffold to study conceptual issues of the theory.

Preempting performance challenges: the effects of inoculation messaging on attacks to task self-efficacy.

Although inoculation messages have been shown to be effective for inducing resistance to counter-attitudinal attacks, researchers have devoted relatively little attention toward studying the way in which inoculation theory principles might support challenges to psychological phenomena other than attitudes (e.g., self-efficacy). Prior to completing a physical (i.e., balance) task, undergraduates (N = 127, Mage = 19.20, SD = 2.16) were randomly assigned to receive either a control or inoculation message, and reported their confidence in their ability regarding the upcoming task. During the task, a confederate provided standardized negative feedback to all participants regarding their performance, and following the completion of the task, participants again reported their self-efficacy along with measures assessing in-task processes. Findings supported the viability of efficacy inoculation; controlling for pre-task self-efficacy, task performance, and relevant psycho-social variables (e.g., resilience, self-confidence robustness), participants in the inoculation condition reported greater confidence in their ability (i.e., task self-efficacy) than those in the control condition at post-task. Relative to those in the inoculation condition, participants in the control condition also experienced greater concentration disruption and self-presentation concerns during the task.

Serious as a heart attack: health-related content of late-night comedy television.

Although the medical community hoped that Vice President Dick Cheney's public experiences with heart problems and subsequent treatments would serve to raise awareness, educate the public about heart disease and treatment options, and showcase advances in cardiac care, late-night comedians saw Cheney's health problems as joke fodder. Comedians like Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Conan O'Brien ridiculed Cheney in their monologues, suggesting the vice president was frail, weak, and near death-certainly not a "poster boy" for contemporary cardiac care. This investigation presents a textual analysis of late-night comedy monologue jokes from July 25, 2000, to October 7, 2003. The themes that emerge in the jokes include Cheney's infirmity, his questionable fitness for office, and ridicule for his state-of-the-art defibrillator. Implications of health-related content in late-night comedy programs are offered, including the potential impacts on health knowledge and attitudes toward illness. This study takes an important step toward understanding health messages in an unconventional yet powerful media venue.