Visual policy narrative messaging and COVID-19 vaccine uptake

<p><span>In the face of vaccine hesitancy, public health officials are seeking more effective risk communication approaches to increase vaccination rates. We test the influence of visual policy narratives on COVID-19 vaccination behavior through a panel survey experiment conducted in early 2021 (n=3900) and then eight weeks later (n=2268). We examine the effects of three visual policy narrative messages that test the narrative mechanism of character selection (<em>yourself, your circle, </em>and<em> your community</em>) and a non-narrative control on COVID-19 vaccine behavior. Visual risk messages that use narratives positively influence COVID-19 vaccination through serial mediation of affective response to the messages and motivation to get the COVID-19 vaccination. Additionally, character selection matters, as messages focusing on protecting others (i.e., <em>your</em> <em>circle</em> and <em>your</em> <em>community</em>) perform stronger than that of <em>yourself</em>. Political ideology moderated some of the effects, with conservative respondents in the non-narrative control condition having a higher probability of vaccination in comparison to the <em>protect</em> <em>yourself</em> condition. Taken together, these results suggest that public health officials should use narrative-based visual communication messages that emphasize communal benefits of vaccinations.</span></p>