Vaccine Metaphors

This paper presents a study on the effects of different metaphors for people’s perceptions of and communication about vaccinations:

Flusberg, S. J., Mackey, A. and Semino, E. (2024) Seatbelts and Raincoats, or Banks and Castles: Investigating the Impact of Vaccine Metaphors, PLoS ONE 19(1): e0294739. 

The study tested different metaphors for five vaccine-related questions. Below are the five questions and links to animated versions of some of the metaphors that were tested in the study.

  1. How do vaccines work? A Castle metaphor: https://bit.ly/49nEvjX
  2. Is ‘natural immunity’ better than vaccine-induced immunity? A Fire drill metaphor: https://bit.ly/3SI1e4F
  3. Are vaccines that are developed quickly safe? A Cake metaphor: https://bit.ly/3SndFBw
  4. Why take a vaccine if I’m at low risk from the illness? A Speed Limit metaphor: https://bit.ly/3SFA7XU
  5. Why take a vaccine if it isn’t 100% effective? A Raincoat metaphor: https://bit.ly/4boy6qa