The Doctors for Coronavirus Prevention Project Thanksgiving / Christmas Messaging Campaign

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Status: Completed

Conditions: Covid19

Treatments: Behavioral: Facebook Ads on the importance of staying safe during the Thanksgiving / Christmas holiday

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04644328

2003000118A010

Details and patient eligibility

About

Facebook ads with physician-delivered videos were shown before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and focused on staying safe during the COVID pandemic by limiting travel and mask-wearing.

Full description

The investigators used Facebook ads to show a 20 second video clip recorded by Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard and Lynn Community health center doctors (6 people in all) to approximately 20,000,000 Facebook users. The ads will be shown before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday and will focus on staying safe - limiting travel and mask-wearing. The investigators will randomize exposure to the ad campaign at the ZIP code or county level to ask:

Do the videos change mobility and Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday travel? Do they reduce the spread of COVID-19?

Are there spillover impacts from the video messages? For example, if individuals decide to stay home, then do the geographical regions that tend to be visited by people from treated areas experience any effects, either through information spillovers or through a reduction in travel?

Enrollment: 820 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Individuals viewing the ads must be Facebook users, 18 years and older. Facebook will decide specifically which users receive the messages within a target geographical area (zip or county).

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Sequential Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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820 participants in 2 patient groups

High-Intensity Treatment Arm

Experimental group

Description:

Treatment: Individuals received approximately 3 Facebook ads over a 2-week period. Each ad contained a short video recorded by a physician using a script that discusses staying safe during the holidays by considering not traveling and using a mask when appropriate. Randomization to treatment: The 13 states which centrally report COVID-19 cases at the ZCTA level contained 829 counties. At Thanksgiving, 9 counties were excluded due to data limitations. At Christmas, 62 counties were excluded due to data limitations and potential negative impacts in rural, conservative areas resulting from polarization in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Approximately half of the counties were randomized to high-intensity treatment with the remaining randomized to low-intensity treatment. In high-intensity counties, 3/4 of ZCTAs were treated (i.e., Facebook users in those ZCTAs received ads) and 1/4 were not. In low-intensity counties, 1/4 of ZCTAs were treated and 3/4 were not.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Facebook Ads on the importance of staying safe during the Thanksgiving / Christmas holiday

Low-Intensity Control Arm

No Intervention group

Description:

Control: Individuals did not receive ads containing short physician-recorded videos. Randomization to treatment: The 13 states which centrally report COVID-19 cases at the ZCTA level contained 829 counties. At Thanksgiving, 9 counties were excluded due to data limitations. At Christmas, 62 counties were excluded due to data limitations and potential negative impacts in rural, conservative areas resulting from polarization in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Approximately half of the counties were randomized to high-intensity treatment with the remaining randomized to low-intensity treatment. In high-intensity counties, 3/4 of ZCTAs were treated (i.e., Facebook users in those ZCTAs received ads) and 1/4 were not. In low-intensity counties, 1/4 of ZCTAs were treated and 3/4 were not.