When Do People Verify and Share Health Rumors on Social Media? The Effects of Message Importance, Health Anxiety, and Health Literacy

TLDR

The study investigates how perceived message importance, health anxiety, and health literacy influence the effect of message label and valence on intentions to verify and share health rumors. The authors conducted a 3×2 online semi‑experiment with 660 Twitter users, presenting unverified influenza vaccine information labeled as none, news, or rumor and varying valence, and measuring health anxiety and literacy. Results showed that perceived message importance mediated the effect of message label and valence on verification and sharing intentions, and that health anxiety and health literacy moderated these relationships, with anxiety influencing sharing only and literacy affecting both verification and sharing.

Abstract

This study explores the roles of perceived message importance, health anxiety, and health literacy in the relationship between message factors (message label and message valence) and behavioral intentions for rumor verification and sharing. 660 Twitter users responded to unverified information regarding the influenza vaccine. A 3 (label: none vs. news vs. rumor) × 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) online semi-experiment, with a survey to measure health anxiety and health literacy, showed the following results: First, perceived message importance mediated the relationship between message factors and behavioral intentions: only in the condition of the negative message, participants considered a news-labeled message more important than a rumor-labeled or a no-label message. Perceived message importance was associated with intentions to verify and share the message. Second, health anxiety interacted with perceived message importance only when predicting an intention to share the message. Last, healthy literacy interacted with perceived message importance when predicting intentions to both verify and share the message. The results will provide implications for health communication research and practices, especially on managing and controlling rumor dissemination on social media.