What an amazing (mega) intervention study. And with findings very counter to expectations, as ever, this is why we need quantitative evidence at scale. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07591-x
@grimalkina My hasty skim may be off base, but…it seems like maybe the buried headline here is that all interventions have only marginal benefit, and doing nothing at all was almost as effective (~5% vs ~6% vax uptake during study period)?
@grimalkina Sure, an increase from 5 to 6 would matter a lot cumulatively if it’s sustained over time! (Though the study didn’t examine that either.) And texting is probably cheap enough to fall into the “why not” category, unlike free rides.
I guess what I’m getting at is given that result for no intervention, and similar result for all reminders, maybe the whole model of “vax resistance” is flawed; maybe it’s more like “vax procrastination.”
@inthehands from the pov of how these things go I wouldn't read it that way, you'd expect an increase from a brief intervention to be small but a small but real increase at large numbers still matters a lot :). The null finding here is really important and surprising imo and an important finding so we don't waste a ton of money on intuitive but not evidenced interventions!
@grimalkina Yeah, and the pivot in the initial rollout from “no, you have to wait” to “why won’t people go?!” was just painful to watch. The whole vax rollout seemed rooted in politics and just vibes in a way that thinking like this study might have helped untangle.
@inthehands side point whether it lasts or not for key update moments at this scale of millions this increase did matter even in a single shot (lmfao) esp when you think about the goals of earlier vaccination reducing burden on a local infrastructure
@joby@grimalkina Maybe my new nomination for hidden headline in the OP study is “keeping it simple and sticking to the basics can work just fine, actually”
@inthehands oh I know. Absolutely fking infuriating. We had a TON of inhibitory messaging, shaming ("you idiots who aren't medical professionals couldn't possibly put a mask on right" is one I can't forgive all the MDs on Twitter for), and other things going on. The world is not static nor neutral
@grimalkina@inthehands What boggled my mind about the "you idiots who aren't medical professionals couldn't possibly put a mask on right" is that even for the goobers who can't put a mask on right, it's *still* better than no mask at all.
@grimalkina@joby Among other things, this helps address the pattern I’ve seen in my spouse’s speech/lang pathologist work: huge pressure for evidence-based practice — but then available evidence tends to be tenuous data about a tiny subset of actual practice. Being strictly “evidence-based” thus ends up meaning repeating bad practice of one sad study for years until another upends it; miserably little framework for •synthesizing• research with practitioner experience.