Bierwiaczonek, K.*, Gundersen, A.B.*, & Kunst, J.R. (2022). The role of conspiracy beliefs for COVID-19 health

The paper, in plain language

Testing whether beliefs bite

During the pandemic it was contested whether conspiracy theories actually changed health behaviour or merely made noise. Kinga Bierwiaczonek, Aleksander Gundersen and I meta-analysed 310 effects from 93 samples — correlational and, critically, longitudinal — collected across the pandemic's first fourteen months.

A weak average hiding a sharp profile

The headline association is modest: believers were slightly more reluctant toward prevention overall, and slightly less so in longitudinal data. The profile underneath is more interesting. Vaccination showed the strongest resistance; mask wearing and hygiene showed none at all — two honest nulls. The largest association ran the other way: conspiracy believers were markedly more favourable toward treatments without scientific basis. The link also strengthened as the pandemic wore on, and country context — inequality, democracy, press freedom — moderated almost nothing.

Why it matters

Small correlations at population scale are not small stakes: shifted vaccination decisions across millions of people translate into real epidemiological consequences. But the specificity matters just as much for policy — conspiracy beliefs did not make people abandon every precaution, they steered them toward alternative epistemologies: away from vaccines, toward miracle cures. That pattern connects this work to my broader strand on why conspiracy theories find their audiences, from loneliness trajectories to perceived minority status.