Past efforts to improve vaccine attitudes have had limited success or even backfired for example, messages refuting claims about the link between vaccines and autism, as well as messages featuring images of children who were sick with VPDs, had negative effects on vaccine attitudes among those who were already hesitant to vaccinate. Indeed, research suggests that individuals should exhibit a greater interest in vaccinations during a pandemic because disease threat is more salient. In the case of COVID-19, this would suggest more positive attitudes toward a vaccine and greater likelihood to get vaccinated. When individuals perceive heightened risk of a threat, they become more favorable toward interventions that mitigate that threat, including vaccination (for a meta-analysis on the effect of perceived risk on intentions and behaviors, see ). For example, research shows that media coverage plays a significant role in determining the extent to which we take threats seriously.
Past research has identified a variety of situational and individual-level factors that influence vaccine attitudes and behavior, the most prominent of which are risk perceptions and demographic characteristics.Īssessments of risk are influenced by both cognitive evaluations (i.e., objective features of the situation such as probabilities of outcomes) and affective reactions, as well as by contextual factors (e.g., the information that is most available or salient at the time ). The present research reports findings from a longitudinal study conducted during the COVID-19 health crisis, in which we measured changes in attitudes toward a prospective vaccine, as well as shifts in vaccine attitudes in general.įactors influencing vaccine attitudes and behaviors The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new reality where individuals are faced with a previously unknown disease and its effects, providing a unique opportunity to investigate vaccine attitudes during a period of heightened disease salience. Ironically, the objection to vaccines is commonly a consequence of their effectiveness-because individuals have lower exposure to VPDs, they are less concerned about contracting them, which consequently leads to greater vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy has led to a decline in vaccine uptake and to an increase in the prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs). Despite considerable evidence showing vaccines are safe, there is increasing skepticism toward vaccination.
The World Health Organization estimates that vaccines prevented at least 10 million deaths between 2010–2015 worldwide. Vaccinations are among the most important public health tools for reducing the spread and harm caused by dangerous diseases. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. įunding: UC San Diego Global Health Initiative (GHI): awarded to all authors Project number: 1001288.
Warns growth decelerate significantly mandates vaccine code#
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All data and code are publicly available on the Open Science Framework at. Received: NovemAccepted: FebruPublished: April 16, 2021Ĭopyright: © 2021 Fridman et al.
PLoS ONE 16(4):Įditor: Valerio Capraro, Middlesex University, UNITED KINGDOM We provide suggestive evidence that differential exposure to media channels and social networks could explain the observed asymmetric polarization between self-identified Democrats and Republicans.Ĭitation: Fridman A, Gershon R, Gneezy A (2021) COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy: A longitudinal study. Consistent with research on risk perception and behavior, those with less favorable attitudes toward a COVID-19 vaccination also perceived the virus to be less threatening. Analyses of heterogeneity indicated that this decline is driven by participants who identify as Republicans, who showed a negative trend in vaccine attitudes and intentions, whereas Democrats remained largely stable. We further found a decline in general vaccine attitudes and intentions of getting the influenza vaccine. Contrary to past research suggesting that the increased salience of a disease threat should improve attitudes toward vaccines, we observed a decrease in intentions of getting a COVID-19 vaccine when one becomes available. How do attitudes toward vaccination change over the course of a public health crisis? We report results from a longitudinal survey of United States residents during six months (March 16 –August 16, 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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