Study reveals vaccine confidence declined considerably during COVID-19 pandemic
A new study suggests that, despite the success of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, vaccine confidence has declined significantly since the start of the pandemic.
Researchers from the University of Portsmouth carried out two anonymous surveys in the winters of 2019 and 2022 to investigate people’s attitudes towards vaccinations and the factors that might underpin hesitancy and refusal.
By comparing the responses of more than 1,000 adults overall, they found the post-pandemic group was considerably less confident in vaccines than in the pre-pandemic one.
The paper, published in the medical journal Vaccine, revealed nearly one in four participants reported a fall in confidence since 2020, and this was observed regardless of participants’ age, gender, religious belief, education and ethnicity.
Participants were asked how much they agreed with statements including:
- Vaccines are safe
- I think vaccines should be a compulsory practice
- I believe if I get vaccinated it would benefit the wellbeing of others
- Vaccines are a necessity for our health and wellbeing
In both surveys participants who held religious beliefs were significantly more vaccine-hesitant than atheist and agnostic ones, and individuals from Black and Asian backgrounds were more hesitant than those belonging to White ethnicities. However, gender showed no association with vaccine confidence.
While these overall trends remained largely similar between the two surveys, some noteworthy changes were observed in the post-pandemic survey. For example, the analysis revealed that while in 2019 middle-aged participants were considerably more apprehensive about getting vaccinated than younger groups, this was not the case in the 2022 survey.
