What Influences Parents on Their Decision to Vaccinate Their Daughters Against HPV?

STUDY OBJECTIVE

To investigate and compare the attitudes of parents who initiated their daughters' HPV vaccination with parents who did not.

METHODS

Data were collected through telephone interviews with a close-end questionnaire on parents' knowledge, attitudes towards the vaccine, and the reasons for vaccinating or not their daughters against HPV. The sample was random, stratified by geographic region and urbanization level, national, and representative of the general population of parents of girls aged 11-18 in Greece. Statistical analysis consisted of descriptives, an inferential analysis with hypothesis testing, and a logistic regression model.

RESULTS

Overall, 996 parents were included in the analysis, 99.0% of which were women. Forty-seven percent of them initiated their daughters' HPV vaccination, with physician recommendation stated as the most important reason for this decision (50.2%). For those who had not initiated their daughters' HPV vaccination (53%), lack of information was the most important reason (25.6%). In the hypothesis testing, parents with unvaccinated daughters agreed more with the statements "I do not have enough information for the HPV vaccine to decide," and "My child is very young to be vaccinated for an STD" (P < .05), but no significant difference found for the statement "It's more possible for a vaccinated girl to begin sexual activities" (P > .05).

CONCLUSIONS

Lack of information, young age of the daughter, and perceived effectiveness of the vaccine are the most important hesitation factors. Physician recommendation is the most important reason to initiate vaccination.

Heuristics in vaccination Decision-Making for newly developed Vaccines: Understanding the public's imitative behavior

This study aims to investigate the extent to which the public engages in imitative behavior in their vaccination decisions for newly developed vaccines in the Chinese context. Given the crucial role of newly developed vaccines in preventing and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, a better understanding of how people make decisions about vaccination with new vaccines is important for overcoming vaccine hesitation and promoting widespread adoption of the vaccines. Our results indicate that the public's decision-making about the newly developed vaccine is influenced by a range of heuristics, including a privileged information heuristic, competence heuristic, and consensus heuristic. Specifically, individuals are more likely to imitate the vaccination behavior of those with privileged information, such as insiders, and those with perceived competence in the field, such as experts. Our findings also demonstrate the impact of majority influence, as the popularity of new vaccines leads to an increase in vaccination uptake through herd behavior. Our data highlights the importance of the first movers who are insiders with privileged information or experts with competence, as their behavior can significantly shape the vaccination decisions of others. Our study provides valuable insights into the complex interplay of heuristics and imitative behavior in vaccination decision-making for newly developed vaccines.

Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake in Great Plains American Indian Communities

With the development of the COVID-19 vaccine in late 2020, the importance of understanding the drivers of vaccine acceptance and vaccine hesitancy is important for the health of American Indian and Alaska Native communities. We conducted a cross-sectional, anonymous survey in October 2021 using established quantitative methods of virtual surveys to reach tribal members living on three reservations in the Great Plains (N = 679). We conducted multivariate analyses using logistic regression to assess the association between independent variables and COVID-19 vaccination status after adjusting for confounding. Respondents were more likely to have received a COVID-19 vaccine if they were older, had a full-time job, had previously received a flu vaccination, reported a higher level of trust in the health care system, had increased access to vaccinations, were able to isolate, or if they held a desire to keep their family safe. This study is one of the first to offer insights into the associations and possible determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake among American Indians in the Great Plains and was completed as part of the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics of Underserved Populations consortium. We identified a set of demographic, socioeconomic, and motivational factors that are associated with COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Great Plains American Indians and Alaska Natives. It is possible that future vaccine uptake may be enhanced through economic development, strengthening health care operations and care quality, and focusing vaccination messaging on family and community impact.

The impact of collective action dilemma on vaccine hesitancy: Evidence from China

Vaccine hesitancy has dramatically decreased the speed of vaccination and stalled global health development. While the factors influencing vaccine hesitancy and mitigation measures have been explored in depth by existing studies, research from the perspective of human interaction is lacking. Based on the theory of collective action, this paper analyzes how free riding behavior affects vaccine hesitancy and how the vaccine hesitancy caused by free riding behavior can be solved. Using 2,203 survey data sets from China, this paper examines the influence of the collective action dilemma - represented by free riding behavior - on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. The empirical results show that the existence of free riding behavior is an essential cause of vaccine hesitancy. Based on this conclusion, this paper discusses how to further alleviate the problem of vaccine hesitancy caused by collective action dilemmas by promoting cooperation. The findings of this paper may be helpful to promote various types of vaccines and further suggest that countries should assume the perspective of solving the collective action dilemma to achieve increased vaccination rates.

COVID-19 vaccine uptake and hesitation among men and women preparing for pregnancy: a cross-section survey based on the theory of planned behavior

BACKGROUND

Given the accelerated speed of COVID-19 vaccine research and administration, the main barriers to herd immunity appear to be concerns about safety and efficacy. Men and women preparing for pregnancy may have the same concerns about COVID-19 vaccination, but few studies have focused on COVID-19 vaccine uptake and hesitation among them.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted among men and women who were preparing for pregnancy in Southwest China. The questionnaire was designed based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Multiple logistic regression was used to explore the determinants of the behaviors of COVID-19 vaccination.

RESULTS

A total of 2878 participants completed the survey. A total of 53.89% of participants received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. A total of 45.21% of participants would receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the future. A total of 0.90% of participants never thought about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Multiple logistic regression model 1 showed that female participants (OR:5.497, 95%CI: 4.292-7.041), participants who never received influenza vaccine (OR:2.664, 95%CI: 1.908-3.718), participants who had never been tested for COVID-19 (OR:2.244, 95%CI:1.504-3.349), participants who had higher score of negative attitude (OR:1.448, 95%CI: 1.219-1.719), participants who had lower scores of injunctive norms (OR:0.440, 95%CI: 0.360-0.537) and descriptive norms (OR:0.105, 95%CI: 0.088-0.126) were more likely to delay COVID-19 vaccination. Model 2 showed that participants who had lower scores for positive attitude (OR: 0.406, 95% CI: 0.230-0.716), injunctive norms (OR: 0.283, 95% CI: 0.130-0.614) and descriptive norms (OR: 0.060, 95% CI: 0.038-0.094) were more likely to refuse COVID-19 vaccination.

CONCLUSIONS

The COVID-19 vaccination rate of men and women preparing for pregnancy was significantly lower than the average vaccination rate of China. Gender, protective health behaviors, vaccination attitudes, and subjective norms had effects on the vaccination behaviors of couples preparing for pregnancy.

Qualitative evaluation of reasons for healthcare professionals being unvaccinated against COVID-19

Background and Aim

The importance of immunization has increased even more during the pandemic. This study aimed to evaluate the reasons for healthcare professionals not being vaccinated against COVID-19 and to develop solutions for the causes.

Subject and Methods

This qualitative study was carried out with in-depth interviews between July 2021 and October 2021, with 32 healthcare professionals and five key people who had never been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Results

The most common reasons that healthcare professionals were not vaccinated against COVID-19 were concerns about vaccine side effects, believing that the vaccine is not effective, distrust of the vaccine content and COVID-19 treatment methods, the rapid production of the vaccine, the fact that the vaccine is produced with a new technology, thinking that the vaccine is not the definitive solution, seeing themselves as healthy and young, and the belief that they would have a mild case of the disease and recover. The main themes were COVID-19 vaccine-related reasons, individual reasons/group effects, contextual reasons, and vaccination-related general issues. The main sub-themes were vaccine production, distrust, risk perception, policies and infodemic.

Conclusion

It has been seen that the uncertainty, infodemic, and insecurity that emerged especially during the pandemic period are related to each other. As knowledge and awareness about the disease increase, there is an increase in risk perception. For this reason, social information studies should be increased and physicians should be enabled to use media tools more effectively.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-023-01822-7.

Barriers and facilitators of willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19: Role of prosociality, authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality. A four-wave longitudinal study

Aim

We investigated longitudinal relations between individual willingness to undergo vaccination against COVID-19 and three social factors: conspiracy mentality, prosociality, and authoritarianism.

Method

This longitudinal study comprised four measurement points. The first wave sample included 1130 responses and was representative of the Polish population in terms of gender, age, and place of residence. Analyses were performed using random intercept cross-lagged panel models.

Results

We observed bidirectional positive cross-lagged relationships between prosociality and willingness to undergo vaccination in the first three waves of measurement. Authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality translated into a lower willingness to vaccinate between the third and fourth points of measurement when the vaccination became a near-term possibility.

Conclusions

Eliciting prosocial motivation to vaccinate can be paramount in overcoming vaccine hesitancy. Because conspiracy thinking may be a crucial barrier to willingness to be vaccinated, it is critical to focus on planning interventions and campaigns undermining conspiracy theories about COVID-19.