The drivers of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and how to address them

What is it about?

Policy makers need to understand vaccine acceptance because it is an important barrier to vaccination campaigns worldwide, for COVID-19 and other diseases. This study focuses on understanding vaccine hesitancy and how to reduce it. Data for this study come from two surveys in Papua New Guinea: a large phone survey designed to be representative of the national population, and an online randomized survey experiment. Less than 20% of relevant respondents to the phone survey were willing to be vaccinated, primarily because of fear of side effects and low trust in the vaccine. Although vaccine hesitancy was high in the online experiment, participants who received a message emphasizing that the vaccine was safe and COVID-19 was dangerous were 68% more likely to state they planned to be vaccinated than those who did not receive any message. Another version of the message appealing to social norms was effective in reducing vaccine hesitancy, although its efficacy was limited to certain groups of people. This study highlights that effective messaging targeting the underlying drivers of vaccine hesitancy can increase vaccine intentions.

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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash