VapeMisinfo (Correcting health misinformation on e-cigarettes among Russian smokers)

Project participants: Hamid Keshavarz, Olessia Koltsova16:07

Concerns about health misinformation have promoted misinformation-correction, especially on social media. However, correcting misinformation is difficult, because once a belief is adopted, it would be hard to persuade adopters to change their existing beliefs. In this vein, social media health influencers as well as health professionals have become today’s opinion leaders. To correct health misinformation on e-cigarettes, this research aims at investigating the impact of correction sources (i.e., health influencers vs health professionals) and their correcting practices on Russian regular cigarette smokers’ perceptions of source credibility.

1. Pre-test and pilot test will be carried out before the actual data collection process to select the best stimuli and to ensure content validity and reliability of the survey questionnaire.
2. In the actual data collection, a between-subjects online experiment: 2 (type of source: influencers (male/female) vs. × 2 health professionals (male/female) × 2 (correcting strategy: alternative explanations vs. sharing credible links) will be conducted. Through predesigned stimuli, participants will see a set of SNS posts from the fake health influencers/professionals and then will answer the online questionnaire including attitudes towards the correcting strategy, credibility of influencer/health professional, intention to behavioural change in using e-cigarettes.