ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1611711
Understanding COVID-19 Booster Information Seeking in a Collectivist Context: The Roles of Social Expectations, Trust in Experts, and Uncertainty
Provisionally accepted
- 1United International College, Zhuhai, China
- 2Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina, United States
- 3Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
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Background: Effective public health communication relies on understanding how individuals seek information during health emergencies. While previous work has investigated vaccine hesitancy and acceptance, little is known regarding the psychological and social motivations behind COVID-19 booster information-seeking in collectivist societies.Objective: This study extends the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model to explore the impact of trust in experts, risk uncertainty, and subjective informational norms on the public's intention to seek information regarding COVID-19 booster shots in China.A national survey of 616 adults in China was undertaken. Structural equation modeling (SEM) examined hypothesized relationships among perceived advantages and disadvantages, affective responses, lack of information, trust in the expertise of others, uncertainty, perceived control over behavior, and social norms.Results: Informational subjective norms were the most significant predictor of intentions to seek information, indicating the influence of collectivist expectations on individual action. Trust in experts was positively associated with perceived risks and inversely related to perceived benefits-and decreased perceived information insufficiency. Uncertainty increased individuals' perceived ability to gather and interpret information, but affective responses had limited direct effects.Findings highlight the need to incorporate social norms, trust relationships, and uncertainty management into public health education campaigns to support vaccine promotion. This study offers empirical evidence for designing culturally adaptive communication interventions that promote booster uptake among collectivist societies and comparable environments.
Keywords: Health Communication, risk information seeking, Trust in experts, uncertainty, Subjective norms, COVID-19 booster
Received: 14 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Hubbard and Hwang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaoshan Austin Li, United International College, Zhuhai, China
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