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Policy-Relevant Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccination: Associations With Demography, Health Risk, and Social and Political Factors.

ABSTRACT: Background: Vaccination is considered to be a key public health intervention to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the success of the intervention is contingent on attitudes toward vaccination and the design of vaccination policies. Methods: We conduct cross-sectional analyses of policy-relevant attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination using survey data of a representative sample of Austrian residents collected by the Austrian Corona Panel Project (ACPP). As outcomes, we examine the individual readiness to get vaccinated, the support for compulsory vaccinations, and the preference for making the vaccine available free of charge. The independent variables include demographics, objective and perceived health risks, and social and political factors. Results: Although there is broad public support for making the vaccine available free of charge, vaccine hesitancy and the opposition to a vaccine mandate are widespread. The protective function of the vaccine for the individual only motivates limited support for vaccinations. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccination also stems from a lack of sense of community and an ongoing politicization of the issue through conspiracy theories and party politics. Conclusion: We propose that overcoming the inherent free-rider problem of achieving sufficiently high vaccination rates poses a potential dilemma for policymakers: Given the politicized nature of the issue, they may find themselves having to choose between making vaccinations compulsory at political costs and a lingering pandemic at high costs for public health and the economy. We propose that promoting a sense of community and addressing potential practical constraints will be key in designing an effective COVID-19 vaccination policy.

SUBMITTER: Paul KT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8290156 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:The large inflow of asylum-seekers in recent years has heralded a diversification in adopted asylum policies across European societies. Although a growing body of research has addressed these versatile approaches and their implications for the European integration project, insight into the social basis of these restrictive or open asylum policies remains underdeveloped. Hence, the current study provides detailed insight into public preferences for asylum policies and offers a new understanding of how these attitudes are affected by diverging socio-economic realities across Europe. In addition, this paper considers the role of individual factors that coincide with publicly adopted frames in contemporary asylum debates. In particular, to explain how contextual differences reflect on opinion climates, the impacts of the policy, economic, and migratory context are studied. On the individual-level, we focus on threat perception and human values, which represent humanitarian, economic, and cultural frames. To explore these relations, data on 20 countries from the European Social Survey Round 8 (2016) are analyzed through a multilevel structural equation modeling approach. Results indicate that, on the contextual-level, only unemployment rates have a significant impact and, rather surprisingly, lower unemployment rates provoke a more negative opinion climate. Yet, this relationship seems to be largely driven by some specific countries that are characterized by large unemployment rates and relatively positive opinion climates simultaneously. The migratory and policy context, on the other hand, do not influence attitudes toward asylum policy. This indicates that it is not necessarily the countries facing the largest inflow of asylum-seekers or issuing the most positive decisions on asylum applications that have the most restrictive opinion climates. As shown by the important roles of human values and threat perceptions, which represent widely adopted frames, public discourses seem much more important in explaining attitudes toward asylum policy across Europe.

Project description:Background While HPV vaccination uptake in Sweden is quite high, at around 80%, vaccine hesitancy remains an issue in countries throughout Europe. The latter can be related to a contemporary context of increased contestation of expert knowledge and of a large share of information on health-related issues including vaccination today being sought via the internet. Still, there is a paucity of recent research on attitudes toward the HPV vaccine in a larger sample of the population in Sweden. This survey study assesses such attitudes and any correlations between vaccine hesitancy and sociodemographic characteristics, trust in healthcare and other societal institutions, and evaluation of the reliability of different sources of information. Methods The validated survey questionnaire was distributed to adult women in Sweden (n = 2,000), via a nationally representative web panel. The response rate was 37%. Aside from descriptive statistics, associations between vaccine hesitancy and sociodemographic and other variables were computed using logistic regressions and expressed as odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Results Our results show a positive attitude toward HPV vaccination overall. Still, some degree of HPV vaccine hesitancy was indicated by 33.8% of the respondents, and more pronounced hesitancy by 7.6%. Regarding vaccination in general, a very positive attitude was indicated by 55%. HPV vaccine hesitancy was associated with low education and low income and strongly associated with a lack of confidence in healthcare and other societal institutions. It was also correlated with a self-assessed lack of access to, and ability to assess the origin, quality and reliability of, information about the HPV vaccine. Conclusion Efforts to provide transparent information about HPV vaccination should be combined with healthcare providers being open to discuss vaccine concerns with patients and avoiding practices that do not promote trust.

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Policy-Relevant Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Vaccination: Associations With Demography, Health Risk, and Social and Political Factors.

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