Malaria Incidence, Growth, and their Relationship among a Cohort of Malawian Children.

In 2017, the United States government declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency (). Public health initiatives (e.g., campaigns, opioid substitution programs, and changes to prescribing practices) have been implemented to address the crisis, raise public awareness of opioid misuse and opioid use disorder (OUD), and highlight evidence-informed interventions such as medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and harm reduction efforts such as naloxone distribution to prevent overdose deaths (; ). These efforts, coupled with extensive media coverage, have made information about the opioid crisis widely available and prominent in the United States (). Although such messages increase public awareness associated with opioid misuse, excessive exposure may also elicit , whereby individuals feel exhausted and bored from heavy exposure to repetitive messages over time (). Message fatigue has been linked to negative consequences in health communication, including information avoidance, psychological reactance, and reduced engagement in self-protective behaviors (; ; ). Beyond intrapersonal effects, message fatigue may also influence social attitudes such as stigma and policy support, which can shape public and institutional response to the opioid crisis (). Despite growing research on communication issues related to the opioid crisis, the extent of accompanying message fatigue among Americans elicited by intense media coverage and public health messaging about the opioid crisis remains underexplored. To fill this gap, this study used nationally representative data to examine the prevalence of opioid message fatigue among U.S. adults. We also explored associations between message fatigue and individual characteristics, stigma toward people with OUD, and policy support for OUD treatment.