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Racial identity and political partisanship have emerged as two important social correlates of hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. To examine the relationship of these factors with respondents’ intention to vaccinate before the vaccine was available (November/December, 2020), we employed a multi-method approach: a survey experi...
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In 2020, support for Joe Biden among Latina/o/x voters was 8 percentage points lower than support for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the largest drop of any racial/ethnic group. While much media and academic attention has focused on understanding the impact of misinformation, COVID-19 concerns, and racial animus on Latino voters in 2020, we take a step b...
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... For example, the public generally trust healthcare practitioners -nurses and doctors -and hospitals much more than pharmaceutical companies and health insurance agencies (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation & Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2021) or public health organizations (Saad, 2020). Congruently, when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, some studies have focused on trust in doctors (e.g., Cho et al., 2022), while others measured trust in science (that is, the scientific process and those who oversee it, such as scientists [Wintterlin et al., 2022], e.g., Pivetti et al., 2021), health organizations (e.g., Gray et al., 2022), pharmaceutical companies (e.g., Fox et al., 2022), or the government more broadly (e.g., Diament et al., 2022). ...
... Thus, individualistic cultures endorse self-concern and selfinterest. Individualistic tendencies were shown to be negatively correlated with vaccine confidence (Fox et al., 2022); whereas collectivistic tendencies were positively associated with pro-vaccination behaviour (Adamus et al., 2022). We hypothesize that in more individualistic countries, despite retaining trust in institutions, individuals may have lower vaccine confidence and be less likely to choose to be vaccinated out of concern for their own health and interests. ...
... On the other hand, the institutional trust of individuals in more individualistic cultures may not lead to relatively high vaccine confidence due to considerations of self-interest and health (Fox et al., 2022). Whereas collectivists, motivated by social norms and considerations for the interests and health of others (believing that trust in vaccines and getting vaccinated is not only for self but also helps others' health), institutional trust often leads to higher confidence levels in vaccines (Adamus et al., 2022). ...
Research has shown that building public trust in institutions contributes to vaccine confidence. However, this association has not been validated in the cross-cultural context, which requires retesting using a larger, and more representative cross-cultural sample and considering potential moderating factors, such as sociocultural context. Using a large sample from Gallup (involving 102,156 participants from 134 countries), we explored the link of institutional trust and vaccine confidence in a global context, and the role of cultural religiosity and individualism in this relationship. Individual-level institutional trust and vaccine confidence were measured using respective Gallup data. Country-level cultural religiosity scores were used to capture the sociocultural context, while Hofstede’s individualism scores reflected the societal inclination towards individual or collective orientation. The results of the multilevel analyses found that institutional trust positively correlates with vaccine confidence on the global scale. Furthermore, the benefits of institutional trust on vaccine confidence is weaker in more religious or individualistic countries. We also identified several individual and cross-country characteristics that influence vaccine confidence, such as age, income, Gini coefficient, and uncertainty avoidance. These findings reveal the influence of individual factors on vaccine confidence and emphasize the importance of understanding the interaction of personal factors with sociocultural context.
Context: Policy feedback research has demonstrated that a highly tangible policy that shapes public attitudes through direct and day-to-day experiences often reshapes public opinion, with the effect of generating supportive or skeptical constituencies that determine the sustainability of future programs. This paper examines the impact of mass vaccination efforts on attitudes towards vaccines in a context of high vaccine hesitancy in the U.S.
Methods: We analyzed 73,092 survey responses from 9,229 participants in the longitudinal data from the Understanding America Study project, covering December 2020 to July 2023. Using two-way fixed-effects ordinary least squares regression and ordinal logistic regression, we estimated the changes in attitudes towards vaccines, including trust in vaccine manufacturing and approval processes, following COVID-19 vaccinations.
Findings: COVID-19 vaccination was associated with improved perceptions of vaccine effectiveness and social benefits and reduced mistrust in vaccine-related processes. However, it did not significantly alleviate concerns regarding vaccine side effects and illness. The strongest effects were observed among respondents initially hesitant but who eventually vaccinated.
Conclusions: The experience of COVID-19 vaccination generally improved attitudes and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines among the U.S. public, particularly among vaccine-hesitant people. These effects could have positive impacts on future immunization programs by mitigating vaccine hesitancy.
