Vaccine hesitancy in the developing world will meet its match with the launch of a game featuring the same central character, a grumpy uncle, used in a similar game teaching people how to spot climate misinformation – with great success.
Most people in western countries would recognise the archetypal and cantankerous “cranky uncle” who dismisses climate change as a socialist plot or a conspiracy perpetuated by Big Pharma.
Australian academic and part-time cartoonist John Cook – who researches climate change misinformation and the best ways to combat it – is based at the University of Melbourne, and when he was building a game to teach people how to detect this misinformation, he drew a cranky uncle as the central character.
Since the Cranky Uncle game was launched in late 2020, it has been used by tens of thousands of people worldwide.
Cook was then asked by Unicef if he could adapt his game to combat misinformation about vaccinations in the developing world.
The Guardian reports that the Cranky Uncle vaccine game has already been launched in Tanzania, with trials completed in Kenya, Uganda and Ghana, and roll-outs planned in more countries, including Pakistan.
In 2019, the World Health Organisation named vaccine hesitancy – “the reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccines” – which was often underpinned by misinformation, as one of the 10 biggest threats to global health.
Unicef says around 20m children missed one or more routine vaccines in 2022, and while numbers are improving in some areas, they have not yet caught up to pre-pandemic figures. Africa has the highest number of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children.
Cook and other social science colleagues have developed an approach which – perhaps ironically – is known as the “inoculation technique”, where people are taught common modes of arguing used by “cranky uncles” before they are exposed to the myths they spread.
The original Cranky Uncle climate game has been downloaded more than 55 000 times from the Apple app store, and is available in 12 languages and as a teachers’ guide.
Before launching the vaccine version of the game, Cook said, a review of studies into vaccine misinformation found the two most pervasive arguments were that natural remedies were always the best approach to fighting disease and a fallacy known as “false cause”.
The “false cause” fallacy comes usually in the form of an anecdote that a person fell ill after having a vaccination, with a spurious link made back to the vaccine.
In the game, players are presented with a healthcare worker and the Cranky Uncle character.
Players learn 10 “tricks” or fallacies the Cranky Uncle will use to misinform them. The job of the player is to take a quiz and spot the fallacies.
The more often players spot the right fallacy, such as when the uncle is using the “false cause” trick or claiming a conspiracy, the angrier the uncle becomes.
Cook and his wife Wendy, a graphic designer, worked on the game with Unicef, the not-for-profit Sabin Vaccine Institute, and the public health consultancy Irimi.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Vaccine hesitancy sees drop in childhood jabs post pandemic – Unicef
Vaccine hesitancy among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa reaches 88%
Substantial degree of vaccine hesitancy in Africa and its diaspora — UCT study
Vaccine hesitancy — one of the world’s top 10 health threats
Immunisations drop as Africa’s faith in vaccines plunges