Young people's media use and adherence to preventive measures in the "infodemic": Is it masked by political ideology?

BACKGROUND: Navigating in the COVID-19 "infodemic" and adhering to preventive measures is especially challenging for young people. The use of information sources and political ideology are empirically important factors for adherence behavior. How these two are interconnected and if political ideology on its own contributes to adherence is not yet well established in young people. OBJECTIVE: This study investigates what role political ideology and political extremism, use of information sources, trust and risk perception play for adhering to preventive measures in young people. METHODS: Cross-sectional online survey in a representative random sample of young people aged 15-34 in two German-speaking and one Italian-speaking canton of Switzerland. The hypotheses were tested with logistic regression and multivariate regression analysis. RESULTS: The odds for using the following information sources decreases for young people positioning themselves towards the right pole of the ideology scale: health-based sources 0.90 (CI: 0.84-0.97), news sources 0.93 (CI 0.87-0.997) and other websites 0.83 (CI: 0.75-0.92). In contrast, the odds of using broadcasting sources increases for young people positioning themselves towards the right pole of the ideology scale (OR: 1.08, CI 1.01-1.15). The odds of using social media decreases with higher political extremism (OR 0.88, CI 0.78-0.99). Political extremism was related with lower adherence to preventive measures in young people with low trust in the government, scientists, and journalists. CONCLUSION: Young peoples' use of information sources is associated with their political ideology and political extremism needs to be taken in account in conjunction with low trust.

Tick-Talk: Parental online discourse about TBE vaccination.

This study aimed to understand parental discourse about vaccination, and to provide guidance for communication that addresses the needs of parents. We analyzed parental discourse on child vaccination in general and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) specifically in a Swiss parental online community. For this purpose, a data set containing 105k posts written by parents between 2007 and 2019 was analyzed using a combination of linguistic discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis. Results show that parents enter into a multidimensional decision-making process, characterized by elaborate practices of negotiation, consideration of vaccination recommendations as well as six distinct influencing thematic factors (vaccination safety, development and control, effectiveness, epidemiology, necessity, alternatives or additional prevention methods). The study shows a clear pattern of seasonality, with parents talking about TBE vaccination mostly triggered by events such as tick bites in spring and summer. From a public health perspective, the study emphasizes the need for sufficient, balanced, and tailored information about TBE vaccination. Online forums provide valuable information about what matters to parents and when, which can help public health authorities and practitioners provide information according to these concerns and enhance health literacy among parents.