Parents’ and Caregivers’ Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Vaccination in Children (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Background: Even with vaccines approved for children over the age of five, and the FDA granting full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccine, studies have shown that only 36-65% of parents plan to have their child receive a COVID-19 vaccine, indicating the need to investigate parental motivations and apprehensions further. The perceptions and intentions of parents/caregivers in the Athens-Clarke County area must be evaluated to assess barriers to vaccine uptake and provide insight into vaccine hesitancy. Methods: The survey, including demographic questions about the caregivers and children, COVID-19 history, and illnesses in the family, and current COVID-19 vaccination status of the family, was given voluntarily to caregivers of middle school students by middle school staff during parent-teacher conferences in October 2021. Multivariable linear regression was used to calculate statistical significance for whether parents were willing to vaccinate their children with the COVID-19 vaccine for each independent variable collected in the survey. Results: Of the 366 caregivers of middle school aged children in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia who reported their intentions for vaccinating their children, 310 (84.7%) reported intentions to vaccinate their child against COVID-19 and 56 (15.3%) reported that they do not intend to vaccinate their child against COVID-19 when the child becomes eligible. Caregivers who expressed belief that the vaccine is effective were found to be significantly associated with intention to vaccinate their child (p=0.009). If the caregiver had already received the vaccine, they were also significantly more likely to vaccinate their child (p=0.004). The caregiver was also significantly more likely to vaccinate their child if their child had a chronic disease (p<0.001). Conclusion: COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy is a public health concern that has arisen since the FDA emergency authorization of vaccines in December of 2020. Multiple studies have sought to elucidate the answer to this question, however detailed demographic studies have not previously been investigated. Concurrently, no study has focused its population to include the southeastern United States. This study promotes the dissemination of knowledge to allow public health experts a better understanding of the current societal opinions and dissents within the southeastern United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.