COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Conspiracy Theories

Based on an online survey that recruited more than 1500 multinational subjects (convenience sampling) during the first year of the pandemic, this project looks at the links between beliefs and attitudes about COVID-19, socipolitical factors such as trust in institutions and mental health symptoms.

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Lab members involved: Elizaveta Solomonova, Fernanda Pérez-Gay Juárez, Ian Gold. Students: Emma Nepthali. 

This study uses a mixed-methods approach to  the questions of a) what characterizes vaccine hesitancy in immigrant communities as a function of generational status, ethnicity, or sex and b) how to target public health messaging to match the attitudes of diverse immigrant communities to build a successful public health approach.

This project is a mixed-methods study exploring vaccine hesitancy in Canada. it consists of one quantitative survey using a representative sample of Canadians, one qualitative study that conducted focus groups with people with different attitudes towards vaccination and a third, also qualitative study that tests the reaction of vaccine hesitant people to different types of messaging encouraging vaccination.

Funded by McGill MI4 fund and CIHR, this project involves a bigger group of researchers -Daniel Weinstock,  Zoua Vang, Maya Goldenberg, Maxwell Smith and Oren Krajden. 

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Lab members involved: Elizaveta Solomonova, Fernanda Pérez-Gay Juárez, Charlotte Little, Sekoul Krastev.  Students: Sasha Avrutsky, Esme Dervis.
 

This study investigates the relationship between perception of threat to one’s social group, and endorsement of conspiracy theories in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, through interviews. We are interested in how social dynamics between groups, and the perception of those dynamics, influences what people believe during uncertain times, such as the pandemic.