Maximising the Benefits of a COVID-19 Vaccine: Getting the Psychology Right

Psychological Society of Ireland

This Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) guidance document has been prepared by the PSI Science and Public Policy Committee (SPPC) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The document aims to help national government and Covid Public Health response committees to inform and to guide their plans for a vaccine roll out as it will be important to address the psychological issues in relation to vaccine hesitancy in advance of the vaccine being widely available. 

The PSI committee who produced this document and PSI are happy to share this with colleagues to use in their own countries and translated into their own languages if helpful with acknowledgement to PSI.  

Download guidance as . PDF 

Delivering effective public health campaigns during Covid-19

The Brithis Psychological Society (BPS) - Coronavirus Resources
03 December 2020

This guidance aims to optimise public health messaging and its outcomes.

It is based on an evidence-based rapid review of the evidence of the factors that may influence people’s responses to public health messages for managing risks and preventing infectious diseases.

Read BPS' recommendations for delivering effective public health campaigns  

This book was first published in 2019  Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Read the Extract from Psychology of Pandemics  

 I've spent years studying the psychology of pandemics. This is what you need to know about COVID-19. In early 2019, I made a number of predictions about the next pandemic, and almost all of them have come true. 

Read the interview with Steven Taylor in The Independent  

A preprint paper just published online by  an interdisciplinary, international group including psychologists, on how the behavioural sciences and the media can be utilised to help manage the outbreak can be found here  

The abstract says: 

“The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive, global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behavior change and poses significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences are critical for optimizing pandemic response. Here we review relevant research from a diversity of research areas relevant to different dimensions of pandemic response. We review foundational work on navigating threats, social and cultural factors, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping that is relevant to pandemics. In each section, we outline implications for solving public health issues related to COVID-19. This interdisciplinary review points to several ways in which research can be immediately applied to optimize response to this pandemic, but also points to several important gaps that researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months.”

Behavioural science and disease prevention: Psychological guidance

Psychology is crucial to reducing the spread of Covid-19 as it enables us to understand and change behaviour and anticipate people’s responses to changes in policy and guidelines. Behaviours are key to preventing infection and improving outcomes.

Download article as PDF from BPS website here 