Suchergebnisse

While it is well understood that demographic, cultural, and personality characteristics predict adolescents' television viewing, little is known about adolescents' conformity to the television viewing behaviour of their peers. In particular, there is a lack of research that investigates the similarity in television programme preferences among adolescents and their classmates. The current three-wave panel study involving 732 adolescents showed that, at baseline, adolescents watched one-fourth of the television programmes that their classmates watched. Adolescents were more likely to conform to the television programme preferences of their classmates than to the preferences of non-classmates. Latent growth curve modelling demonstrated that the similarity in programme preferences among adolescents and their classmates increased over time. Adolescents' overall television viewing predicted the baseline similarity in programme preferences and adolescents' degree of social viewing, access to a bedroom television, and the total amount of television viewing predicted the long-term growth in similarity.

The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism—the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability—is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies toward conventional recruitment of the subjects in research, the ways in which communities are engaged or not engaged in the research process, and a lack of understanding and appreciation of the lived reality of the socially vulnerable. The "hardly reached" are often labelled "hard to reach," keeping this critical population out of view. One approach to mitigate data absenteeism is to engage key stakeholders of the community and its residents in the entire research process from design to dissemination, which influences how research questions are asked and answered and how research gets used. We argue for a more inclusive science of science communication to promote diversity and equity.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has had a devastating impact and efforts are being made to speed up vaccinations. The growing problem of vaccine hesitancy may affect the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine. We examined the individual, communication and social determinants associated with vaccines uptake. METHODS: Data come from a nationwide online probability-based panel of 1012 representative adults in the United States and the survey was conducted before the vaccines were available. People under the federal poverty level and racial and ethnic minorities were oversampled. Our outcome variables of interest were likelihood of vaccinating self and likelihood of vaccinating people under one's care (such as children) measuring behavioral intentions. Independent variables included perceptions of risk, exposure to different media for COVID-19 news, political party identification, confidence in scientists and social determinants of health. Logistic regression analysis was used to ascertain the effects of independent variables on the two outcome variables. RESULTS: The results indicated that 68 and 65% agreed to get the vaccine for themselves and people under their care, respectively. Risk perceptions (severity of and susceptibility to COVID-19) were significantly associated with vaccine uptake. People who relied on "conservative" news outlets, Republicans, and who had low confidence in scientists are least likely to vaccinate self or children. Non-Hispanic Blacks and those with least schooling were also less likely to receive vaccine for themselves or people in their care. CONCLUSIONS: Our study identified race/ethnicity, risk perceptions, exposure to different media for COVID-19 news, party identification and confidence in scientists as factors that would be affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The good news is that these are addressable through strategic public health communications, but a lot of work remains to be done with some urgency.