Individual factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in between and during pandemic waves (July-December 2020).
Vaccine
; 40(1): 151-161, 2022 01 03.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1541009
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
A year after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the global rollout of vaccines gives us hope of ending the pandemic. Lack of vaccine confidence, however, poses a threat to vaccination campaigns. This study aims at identifying individuals' characteristics that explain vaccine willingness in Flanders (Belgium), while also describing trends over time (July-December 2020).METHODS:
The analysis included data of 10 survey waves of the Great Corona Survey, a large-scale online survey that was open to the general public and had 17,722-32,219 respondents per wave. Uni- and multivariable general additive models were fitted to associate vaccine willingness with socio-demographic and behavioral variables, while correcting for temporal and geographical variability.RESULTS:
We found 84.2% of the respondents willing to be vaccinated, i.e., respondents answering that they were definitely (61.2%) or probably (23.0%) willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, while 9.8% indicated maybe, 3.9% probably not and 2.2% definitely not. In Flanders, vaccine willingness was highest in July 2020 (90.0%), decreased over the summer period to 80.2% and started to increase again from late September, reaching 85.9% at the end of December 2020. Vaccine willingness was significantly associated with respondents' characteristics previous survey participation, age, gender, province, educational attainment, household size, financial situation, employment sector, underlying medical conditions, mental well-being, government trust, knowing someone with severe COVID-19 symptoms and compliance with restrictive measures. These variables could explain much, but not all, variation in vaccine willingness.CONCLUSIONS:
Both the timing and location of data collection influence vaccine willingness results, emphasizing that comparing data from different regions, countries and/or timepoints should be done with caution. To maximize COVID-19 vaccination coverage, vaccination campaigns should focus on (a combination of) subpopulations aged 31-50, females, low educational attainment, large households, difficult financial situation, low mental well-being and labourers, unemployed and self-employed citizens.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Vaccines
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Observational study
Topics:
Long Covid
/
Vaccines
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Vaccine
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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