Study Results
Outcome measurements, participant flow, baseline characteristics, and adverse events have been published for this study.
View full resultsBasic Information
Get a concise snapshot of the trial, including recruitment status, study phase, enrollment targets, and key timeline milestones.
COMPLETED
NA
6 participants
INTERVENTIONAL
2021-12-22
2022-01-27
Brief Summary
Review the sponsor-provided synopsis that highlights what the study is about and why it is being conducted.
Related Clinical Trials
Explore similar clinical trials based on study characteristics and research focus.
Video Messages and Vaccination Intention
NCT04979416
Using Text Messages to Boost COVID-19 Vaccine Booking Rate
NCT05993260
Persuasion in Medicine: Experimental Evidence on Sender and Signal Effects
NCT04160975
Message Communicating Latest Data on COVID-19 Transmission in Patient's Area
NCT05621226
Text Message Nudges for COVID-19 Vaccination
NCT05037201
Detailed Description
Dive into the extended narrative that explains the scientific background, objectives, and procedures in greater depth.
Experimental Sample: The experimental sample includes all states where less than 60% of the total population had received a first dose of Covid-19 vaccine by October 21, 2021. There are 1402 counties in the 19 states satisfying those criteria (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming). Excluding the five counties with missing data, there are 1,397 counties in the experiment, of which there are 468 counties in the control group, 310 counties in T1 ("direct" messaging) treatment, 309 counties in T2 ("friends" messaging), and 310 counties in T3 ("gossips" messaging).
The following procedures will be used:
* Treatment Group 1 ("Direct" messaging): The investigators will conduct a Facebook ad campaign to show content about COVID-19 vaccination to a large number of Facebook users. Facebook will allocate ad credits across users in treatment areas. The ads will be displayed twice per week for 3-4 weeks. Like for any Facebook ad, individuals can choose to whether or not to watch the video and can close the ad at any time. If individuals wish, they can also share any of the content with others. The videos shown in the ads will be hosted on our project Facebook page "Doctors for Coronavirus Prevention." As in previous projects by the investigators, a health professional (normally wearing a white coat or scrubs) will read very short scripts directly onto the camera (see eg. https://www.facebook.com/doctors4covidprevention/posts/104965558099200 for an example).
* Treatment Group 2 ("Friends" messaging): For this group, the Facebook ad campaign will recruit individuals to become "vaccine ambassadors" to help spread the word about vaccination to their friends, families and communities. Recruitment ads will be disseminated in a similar manner to the content in T1. Individuals will be able to share the ad with others. Individuals interested in learning more can click through a link in the ad to the vaccine ambassador webpage. Participants can consume or share any of the information on the webpage. Interested individuals can also enroll formally as vaccine ambassadors. They can share their contact information with the study to a) be entered into prize lotteries, b) receive reminders to share content with others, c) be contacted in the future for possible follow-up surveys. They will be asked to give their informed consent at this time and will be screened based on whether they live in a treated county and whether they are 18 years or older.
* Treatment Group 3 ("Gossips" messaging): This treatment looks the same as Treatment Group 2, except the recruitment ads will differ slightly. If the individual clicks through to learn more about vaccine ambassadors, they will also be reminded to share the invitation with people they know who are often the source of important news or information.
* Control: individuals in these counties will receive no intervention and will never be contacted by members of the study team.
Treatment and control status at the county level will be merged with aggregated and de-identified datasets to measure COVID vaccinations, COVID symptoms, and cases, and engagement with the vaccine ambassador content.
The study team will create a series of websites with materials that the vaccine ambassadors can share with friends, family and others in their communities. This same content will be disseminated through sponsored Facebook ads in T1. On the website, the framing of the vaccine-related videos with either a "fact" or "myth" frame will be randomized. The purpose is to study which framing is more effective at engaging users.
Conditions
See the medical conditions and disease areas that this research is targeting or investigating.
Study Design
Understand how the trial is structured, including allocation methods, masking strategies, primary purpose, and other design elements.
RANDOMIZED
PARALLEL
TREATMENT
NONE
Study Groups
Review each arm or cohort in the study, along with the interventions and objectives associated with them.
Control
No intervention in this arm; the study team will examine publicly available county- and zip code-level outcomes in this group.
No interventions assigned to this group
Treatment 1: Direct
Facebook users in the area receive ads which include videos of health professionals telling them to get vaccinated. The health professionals answer common questions about Covid-19 vaccines (e.g. are they safe / are they free).
Doctor Videos
Receive ads on Facebook or through our website with videos in which health professionals tell people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The health professionals answer common questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, such as how mRNA vaccines work, and what types of side effects to expect.
Treatment 2: Friends
Facebook users in the area receive ads which include videos of health professionals encouraging them to help their friends to get vaccinated. There is also a link in the ad to a website build by the study team. This website hosts videos which answer common questions about vaccination (the same videos which are directly served to Facebook users in Treatment 1).
Doctor Videos
Receive ads on Facebook or through our website with videos in which health professionals tell people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The health professionals answer common questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, such as how mRNA vaccines work, and what types of side effects to expect.
Sharing Videos
Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccine Ambassador
Adults in participating geographic areas can sign up to be a "vaccine ambassador" on a website that the study team has built. The study team will send updates to vaccine ambassadors when new content has been posted to the website (e.g. a new video) and/or to remind the vaccine ambassadors to encourage their friends to get vaccinated. The study team will incentivize vaccine ambassadors by entering participating ambassadors into a lottery for a prize.
Video framing
The same videos will be displayed using two different frames: a "myth" frame and a "fact" frame. Visitors to the vaccine content website will randomly receive one framing of each video.
Video order
The order in which videos appear on the vaccine content website will be randomized.
Treatment 3: Gossips
Facebook users in the area receive ads which include videos of health professionals encouraging them to nominate their most influential friends to help their friends get vaccinated. The difference from Treatment 2 is that the health professionals call on Facebook users to get their most influential friends to do the convincing about the vaccine. There is also a link in the ad to a website built by the study team. This website hosts videos which answer common questions about vaccination (the same videos that are directly served to Facebook users in Treatment 1).
Doctor Videos
Receive ads on Facebook or through our website with videos in which health professionals tell people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The health professionals answer common questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, such as how mRNA vaccines work, and what types of side effects to expect.
Sharing Videos (Influencers)
Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to get their most influential friends to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccine Ambassador
Adults in participating geographic areas can sign up to be a "vaccine ambassador" on a website that the study team has built. The study team will send updates to vaccine ambassadors when new content has been posted to the website (e.g. a new video) and/or to remind the vaccine ambassadors to encourage their friends to get vaccinated. The study team will incentivize vaccine ambassadors by entering participating ambassadors into a lottery for a prize.
Video framing
The same videos will be displayed using two different frames: a "myth" frame and a "fact" frame. Visitors to the vaccine content website will randomly receive one framing of each video.
Video order
The order in which videos appear on the vaccine content website will be randomized.
Interventions
Learn about the drugs, procedures, or behavioral strategies being tested and how they are applied within this trial.
Doctor Videos
Receive ads on Facebook or through our website with videos in which health professionals tell people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. The health professionals answer common questions about the Covid-19 vaccine, such as how mRNA vaccines work, and what types of side effects to expect.
Sharing Videos
Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Sharing Videos (Influencers)
Receive ads on Facebook with videos in which health professionals tell people to get their most influential friends to encourage their unvaccinated friends to get the Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccine Ambassador
Adults in participating geographic areas can sign up to be a "vaccine ambassador" on a website that the study team has built. The study team will send updates to vaccine ambassadors when new content has been posted to the website (e.g. a new video) and/or to remind the vaccine ambassadors to encourage their friends to get vaccinated. The study team will incentivize vaccine ambassadors by entering participating ambassadors into a lottery for a prize.
Video framing
The same videos will be displayed using two different frames: a "myth" frame and a "fact" frame. Visitors to the vaccine content website will randomly receive one framing of each video.
Video order
The order in which videos appear on the vaccine content website will be randomized.
Eligibility Criteria
Check the participation requirements, including inclusion and exclusion rules, age limits, and whether healthy volunteers are accepted.
Inclusion Criteria
* Over 18 years old
* In a geographic area targeted by the study
Exclusion Criteria
18 Years
ALL
Yes
Sponsors
Meet the organizations funding or collaborating on the study and learn about their roles.
Facebook, Inc.
OTHER
Code3
INDUSTRY
Stanford University
OTHER
Harvard University
OTHER
Yale University
OTHER
Johns Hopkins University
OTHER
Massachusetts General Hospital
OTHER
Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich
OTHER
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NIH
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
OTHER
Responsible Party
Identify the individual or organization who holds primary responsibility for the study information submitted to regulators.
Principal Investigators
Learn about the lead researchers overseeing the trial and their institutional affiliations.
Esther Duflo, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ben Olken, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abhijit Banerjee, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Marcella Alsan, MD, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Harvard Kennedy School
Arun Chandrasekhar, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Stanford University
Emily Breza, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Harvard University
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Yale University
Emily Hoppe, PhD Student
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
Pierre-Luc Vautrey, PhD Student
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lisa Ho, PhD Student
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lucy Ogbu-Nwobodo, MD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
MGH/McLean Harvard Psychiatry Program
Erica Warner, ScD, MPH
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital
Carlos Torres, MD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Massachusetts General Hospital
Fatima Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Harvard Medical School & Massachusetts General Hospital
Sarah Eichmeyer, PhD
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Ludwig-Maximilians - University of Munich
Locations
Explore where the study is taking place and check the recruitment status at each participating site.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Countries
Review the countries where the study has at least one active or historical site.
Provided Documents
Download supplemental materials such as informed consent forms, study protocols, or participant manuals.
Document Type: Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan
Other Identifiers
Review additional registry numbers or institutional identifiers associated with this trial.
2106000397
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: org_study_id
More Related Trials
Additional clinical trials that may be relevant based on similarity analysis.