Except that large swaths of the population have reading comprehension of 9th graders.

Someone sent me an article about the issues surrounding AZ vax, which concluded that it was safe. However, my friend interpreted all the concerns in terms of 'fear' - literally taking the results upside down. She didn't understand the article, just 'fear'.

Which is why by and large 'transparency' is important, but also as important is to keep less material negative artifacts muted in terms of dissemination. Yes, the major news outlets do a side piece, and officials do their little press interviews and publish data, but it doesn't go to prime time.

Literally the best thing to 'convince' people is to show others getting it.

I'm still dismayed that Trump or Biden didn't ask the Avengers team to do more pro-vax stuff.

Little vignettes with Captain America and Iron Man getting vaxxed would have been great.

And then follow up with the real actors getting vaxxed.

I'm surprised not to see more coordinated campaigns of celebrities, authors, singers, athletes especially NASCAR drivers and country singers do little public notices. If Lebron and Jordan want to help their community they could spend a few months going town to town, going to visit vax clinics, talking to staff, raising awareness, dropping into the local radio station/barber shops, schools. That would really help move the needle. Pun intended.

Facts, or anything that requires cognitive interpretation is out of range for 1/2 the population, and may not get across to most of the rest through noisy media channels. I don't watch the news because I find it terrible, but it causes me to miss some key things.

Very simple concepts, examples, images, emotion and especially 'social evidence' by those with 'social influence' (i.e. athletes, actors) is how the masses are moved. 'Keep Calm, Carry On' in red, with the Crown ... is one of the simplest, smartest public communications issuances ever.

Edit:

"Better resources that explain what we do and don't know focused on those points specifically and accessible to a lay audience would probably help the most people, preferably linking to scientific papers and primary sources to let the more scientifically minded dig in."

This is a little upside down and implies kind of a misconception of public communications.

It's very, very difficult to get simple, even essential messages across to large populations. Nuanced information is almost impossible.

We can barely get the message of vaccine availability out.

So we definitely want to have 'the latest information' about vaccines available on gov. web sites, and probably places like reddit threads etc. - but the people on the more literate end of the spectrum are already convinced. Those on the lower end of the spectrum are the problem - and they're not even going to be able to read 'scientific reviews' let alone even know what one is, let alone come across the literature in the first place, let alone have any interest whatsoever in reading it.

I would urge you to go to Los Angeles and get on the bus. Just look around. Listen to what people are saying, what they are paying attention to, their vocabulary, the music they are listening to, their behaviour and interactions. Strike up a conversation. Many are elderly, many are isolated, many are migrants with weaker language skills and live in more isolated communities often not exposed to proper information. The 'lowest common denominator' is quite low and those are the people that are the most skeptical. 'The Rock', 'Oprah' and 'Kenney Chesney' would do 100x more to improve awareness than any pamphlet referencing scientific research.

Some literacy stats [1]

[1] https://literacyproj.org/