This paper outlines five insights drawn from the current public discourse on vaccines: – People talk about “protection” as the most compelling reason to vaccinate – High-profile messages calling vaccination a “moral obligation” provoke strong negative responses – Messages that are simple, focused on gratitude and coming from health professionals, social influencers and “people like me” elicit more positive responses than messages from celebrities/politicians – Lack of trust in the system and concerns about side-effects and safety of vaccines are the two most common drivers of vaccine reluctance and low confidence – There is little differentiation in the public discourse between different types of vaccines, except in relation to safety and, for some, efficacy Methodology: Establishing a data-driven framework for vaccine communication The NetBase Quid analytics platform was utilized to read and analyse the public online conversation on vaccines to understand what drives and undermines confidence. The initial “vaccine” keyword search yielded 66 million conversations during the six-month period to April 2021. Sources included Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, forums and blogs.

The data was evaluated using NetBase Quid artificial intelligence and visualizations to test hypotheses that the the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine brought forth, based on its decades of research into factors that drive and undermine confidence. For example, a subset of the conversation that included phrases such as, “I’ve had the vaccine”, was then used to explore the most common words, concepts and reactions associated when people post that they have been vaccinated. The nuances of the emotions people demonstrate, as well as the longevity of the ideas, were also studied.