The Contradictory Health Information Processing (CHIP) model explains individuals’ processing of conflicting health claims. Tests of the model, while highly supportive, have been experimental and have relied upon low-familiar topics. Accordingly, a survey of parents with a child aged <12 years (N = 510) was conducted to test the application of the CHIP model to the controversial issue of childhood COVID-19 vaccination; such a vaccine had not yet been approved for this age group at the time of the survey. As hypothesized, reliance upon conservative news was associated with the perception that media information contradicted official guidance to vaccinate children, which led to issue uncertainty. Issue uncertainty prompted negative appraisals and decision uncertainty. Specifically, decision uncertainty partially mediated the effect of issue uncertainty on negative appraisals of vaccination, which in turn aroused threat emotions. However, threat emotions did not predict information-seeking, as specified in the model. This result may have been due to respondents having already decided to vaccinate their child, or not – a reflection of the partisan nature of the topic and the extensive coverage it had received. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

矛盾的健康信息处理 (CHIP) 模型解释了个人对相互矛盾的健康声明的处理。该模型的测试虽然得到了高度支持，但一直是实验性的，并且依赖于不太熟悉的主题。因此，一项针对孩子年龄 <12 岁（N= 510) 用于测试 CHIP 模型在儿童 COVID-19 疫苗接种这一有争议的问题上的应用；在调查时，这种疫苗尚未获准用于该年龄组。正如假设的那样，对保守新闻的依赖与媒体信息与官方对儿童接种疫苗的指导相矛盾的看法有关，这导致了问题的不确定性。问题的不确定性导致负面评价和决策不确定性。具体来说，决策不确定性在一定程度上调节了问题不确定性对疫苗接种负面评价的影响，进而引发了威胁情绪。然而，威胁情绪并不能预测模型中指定的信息寻求。这个结果可能是由于受访者已经决定为他们的孩子接种疫苗，与否——反映了该主题的党派性质及其所获得的广泛报道。讨论了理论和实践意义。