Vaccine Misinformation in the Digital Age: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Confidence in immunization has weakened across several regions over the past decade, and the circulation of inaccurate or misleading content about vaccines has accompanied, though not necessarily caused, the resurgence of vaccine-preventable infections. Adequate analysis cuts across immunology, behavioral science, communication research, and public-health practice. This narrative review draws on literature retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase, complemented by reports from the World Health Organization, the United States CDC, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and Africa CDC. Search strings combined vaccine-related, misinformation-related, and methodological terms using Boolean operators; the primary window was 2000–2026, with priority placed on work published since 2018 and particular attention to scholarship produced after the COVID-19 pandemic. Article selection followed the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA). Hesitancy is not a single condition; it varies with political alignment, income, geography, religious context, education, and historical experience with health institutions. Algorithmic curation, engagement-optimized feeds, and the recent emergence of generative-AI tools have altered how vaccine-related claims circulate, although causal estimates linking platform features to behavior remain modest and contested. Mitigation evidence is uneven: Debunking, motivational interviewing, and consistent provider recommendation carry the firmest support, whereas the often-cited backfire effect has not survived recent replication. Sustaining vaccine confidence depends on interdisciplinary work that respects this heterogeneity, acknowledges what the evidence cannot yet settle, and engages honestly with the rapidly shifting digital environment.