COVID-19 Health Messaging to Underserved Communities

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Status: Completed

Conditions: Coronavirus

Treatments: Behavioral: Messaging

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04371419

2003000118

Details and patient eligibility

About

Recent data have shown that covid19 is disproportionately infecting and killing African Americans and Latinx people in the United States. The aim of the study is to determine which messages are most effective at increasing knowledge and changing behaviors that can protect individuals and their communities from the virus. To accomplish this aim, we plan to recruit approximately 20,000 Hispanic and African-American individuals and randomly assign them to videos that vary either the sender or the framing of the message, while providing the relevant public health information.

Full description

The following procedures will be followed. The research subjects will participate online.

1. Doctors from MGH who express interest in participating will record messages according to our scripts (US Doctors Script African American, US Doctors Script Latinx). They will be instructed to film several different versions each.

2. We will recruit a sample of Latinx and African American study participants from across the country through Lucid, an online survey firm that has access to a large subject pool.

3. Participants will first read a consent script and give us their informed consent (US Doctors Messaging Consent)

4. Participants will then navigate through the following steps

   1. Brief demographics survey questions (US Doctors Messaging Survey)
   2. Videos 1 and 2: Introduction, Acknowledgement, Social Distancing (US Doctors Script African American, US Doctors Script Latinx). Individuals in the control group will not see videos.
   3. Beliefs survey questions (US Doctors Messaging Survey)
   4. Video 3: Masks (US Doctors Script African American, US Doctors Script Latinx). Again, individuals in the control group will not see a video here.
   5. Main outcomes survey (US Doctors Messaging Survey)
   6. Control group is shown a version of all 3 videos at end (US Doctors Script African American, US Doctors Script Latinx).

5. The video messages each participant in one of the treatment groups sees will be randomized on the following dimensions. The different versions are clearly demarcated in the US Doctors Scripts document.

   1. Racial or ethnic identity of the doctor delivering the messages: concordant vs. discordant identity to the subject.
   2. Whether the message includes an acknowledgment of "elephant in the room" issues for each target group: trust in the medical system or fear of deportation.
   3. Whether the social distancing component of the message is delivered by Dr. Birx of the CDC or recorded by the MGH physicians.
   4. Whether individuals are given information about how representative individuals perceive mask wearers of color. This information comes from results of our nationally representative pilot survey.
   5. Some individuals in a control group will only see messages after all surveying has been completed.

Enrollment: 14,267 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria: Hispanic and African-American adult individuals, men and women - oversample of those with less completed education Exclusion Criteria: children, those who do not identify as above

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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14,267 participants in 17 patient groups, including a placebo group

Control - CDC - Mask (Control) - Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro, CDC Social Distancing, Mask Control version delivered by minority doctor of same background as the recipient - other definitions are similar

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control - CDC - Mask (Control) - Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro, CDC Social Distancing, Mask Control version delivered by majority doctor of different background as the recipient - other definitions are similar

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control - MGH - Mask (Control) - Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro, MGH Social Distancing, Mask Control version delivered by concordant doctor

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control - MGH - Mask (Control) - Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro, MGH Social Distancing, Mask Control version delivered by discordant doctor

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Discrimination- MGH - Mask (Control) - Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Introduction Acknowledges past discrimination, MGH doctor talks about Social Distancing, Mask Control all by concordant MD

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Discrimination- MGH - Mask (Control) - Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Introduction Acknowledges past discrimination, MGH doctor talks about Social Distancing, Mask Control all by discordant MD

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. econ. circumstance- MGH - Mask (Control ) Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Intro econ. circumstance -MGH - Mask (Control ) Concordant

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. econ. circumstance - MGH - Mask (Control ) Discordant

Experimental group

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control Intro - CDC - Mask (antiStigma) Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro - CDC - Mask (antiStigma) Concordant messenger

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control Intro - CDC - Mask (antiStigma) Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Control Intro - CDC - Mask (antiStigma) discordant messenger

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Concordant messenger

Experimental group

Description:

Control - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Concordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Control- MGH-MaskS (antiStigma) Discordant messenger

Experimental group

Description:

Control - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Discordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Discrimination - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Acknowledge Discrimination - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Concordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Discrimination - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Acknowledge Discrimination - MGH - MaskS (antiStigma) Discordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Econ Hardship- MGH - Mask (antiStigma) Concordant

Experimental group

Description:

Acknowledge Econ Hardship- MGH - Mask (antiStigma) Concordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Ack. Econ Hardship- MGH - Mask (antiStigma) Discordant

Experimental group

Description:

Acknowledge Econ Hardship- MGH - Mask (antiStigma) discordant sender

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging

Info later - Pure Control

Placebo Comparator group

Description:

This group will not receive the videos but will receive information later.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Messaging