COVID-19 vaccines are widely available in wealthy countries, yet many remain unvaccinated. We report on two studies (U.S. and France) with millions of Facebook users that tested strategies central to vaccination outreach: (1) health professionals addressing common concerns and (2) motivating “ambassadors” to encourage vaccination in their social networks. We can reject very small effects of any intervention on new first doses (0.16pp - U.S., 0.021pp - France), with similar results for second doses and boosters (U.S.). During the Omicron wave, messaging aimed at the unvaccinated or those tasked with encouraging others did not change vaccination decisions.
Geographic Coverage: United States, France
Time Period(s): 12/22/2021 – 3/17/2022
The following publications are supplemented by the data in this project.
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Ho, Lisa, Emily Breza, Abhijit Banerjee, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Fatima Cody Stanford, Renato Fior, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, et al. “The Impact of Large-Scale Social Media Advertising Campaigns on COVID-19 Vaccination: Evidence from Two Randomized Controlled Trials.” NBER, no. w30618 (November 2022). https://doi.org/10.3386/w30618.
