KFF poll: frequent AI chatbot users are more likely to believe vaccine myths

A poll from KFF, a US nonprofit focused on health research, released on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, found that American adults who frequently turn to AI chatbots for health advice are more likely to believe vaccine myths, such as the claim that vaccines cause autism.

What the poll found

KFF fielded the poll in May 2026 with a representative sample of 2,480 US adults. The researchers compared how often respondents asked AI chatbots for medical advice with how willing they were to accept anti-vaccine claims, and found a consistent link.

• KFF published the poll on June 30, 2026 (a Tuesday)
• The sample included 2,480 US adults
• Fieldwork took place in May 2026
• The myths tracked included "vaccines cause autism" and "the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the disease itself"
• The link held after controlling for respondents' age, race, education, and political views

Why other factors don't explain the link

The key finding of the KFF study is that the correlation between using AI chatbots for medical advice and believing vaccine myths persisted even after statistically controlling for participants' age, race, education level, and political affiliation. In other words, the usual explanations, such as vaccine skepticism running higher in certain political groups, don't fully account for the result: the habit of asking AI for advice turned out to be an independent factor.

How people use AI for health questions

A growing number of Americans turn to AI chatbots for a first opinion on symptoms, medications, or whether they need a vaccine, instead of seeing a doctor or checking trusted medical sources. The KFF poll doesn't specify which chatbots respondents used, but it does capture a clear pattern: the more often someone asks AI for medical advice, the more likely they are to believe unverified claims about vaccines.

Risks to public health

Public health experts have long warned that the spread of vaccine myths directly lowers vaccination rates and raises the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. The KFF results add a new misinformation channel to that picture: where the concern used to center mainly on social media and forums, the list of sources now includes AI chatbots, which people consult directly for personalized advice.

What sets this channel apart is that users perceive a chatbot's answer as a personal consultation addressed to them, not as a post in a feed that they can question or compare against other opinions. That may make misinformation absorbed through a conversation with AI more durable than what people encounter while casually scrolling social media.

What it means

The findings add to concerns that people increasingly replace a doctor's visit with a conversation with AI, and that generative models can unintentionally reinforce medical misinformation among precisely the users most vulnerable to it.

FAQ

Who conducted the poll on the link between AI chatbots and belief in

vaccine myths?

The poll was conducted by KFF, a US health research organization; the results were released on June 30, 2026.

How many people took part in the poll?

The poll included 2,480 US adults in a representative sample, with fieldwork conducted in May 2026.

Which vaccine myths are frequent AI chatbot users more likely to believe?

The myths tracked in the poll include the belief that vaccines cause autism and that the measles vaccine is more dangerous than the virus itself.