Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Mar 22;9(3):300.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines9030300.

Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

Patricia Soares  1   2 , João Victor Rocha  1   2 , Marta Moniz  1   2 , Ana Gama  1   2 , Pedro Almeida Laires  1   2 , Ana Rita Pedro  1   2 , Sónia Dias  1   2 , Andreia Leite  1   2 , Carla Nunes  1   2
Affiliations

Factors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

Patricia Soares et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

It is critical to develop tailored strategies to increase acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine and decrease hesitancy. Hence, this study aims to assess and identify factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Portugal. We used data from a community-based survey, "COVID-19 Barometer: Social Opinion", which includes data regarding intention to take COVID-19 vaccines, health status, and risk perception in Portugal from September 2020 to January 2021. We used multinomial regression to identify factors associated with intention to delay or refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Portugal was high: 56% would wait and 9% refuse. Several factors were associated with both refusal and delay: being younger, loss of income during the pandemic, no intention of taking the flu vaccine, low confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine and the health service response during the pandemic, worse perception of government measures, perception of the information provided as inconsistent and contradictory, and answering the questionnaire before the release of information regarding the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. It is crucial to build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine as its perceived safety and efficacy were strongly associated with intention to take the vaccine. Governments and health authorities should improve communication and increase trust.

Keywords: COVID-19; vaccination; vaccine hesitancy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interest or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Forest plot of vaccine hesitancy for contextual influences. Adjusted odds-ratio (adjusted for gender, age, education, and period of questionnaire) and the respective 95% confidence intervals are denoted by black dots and black lines, respectively. (A) Individuals who would wait to take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (B) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (C) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would wait to take the vaccine.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plot of vaccine hesitancy for individual and group influences. Adjusted odds-ratio (adjusted for gender, age, education, and period of questionnaire) and the respective 95% confidence intervals are denoted by black dots and black lines, respectively. Forest plot confidence intervals and estimates were cut off at 10. (A) Individuals who would wait to take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (B) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (C) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would wait to take the vaccine.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plot of vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19-specific factors. Adjusted odds-ratio (adjusted for gender, age, education, and period of questionnaire) and the respective 95% confidence intervals are denoted by black dots and black lines, respectively. Forest plot confidence intervals and estimates were cut off at 10. (A) Individuals who would wait to take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (B) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would take the vaccine; (C) individuals who would not take the vaccine compared to individuals who would wait to take the vaccine.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) COVID-19 Situation Update Worldwide, as of Week 1 2021. [(accessed on 19 January 2021)];2021 Available online: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases.
    1. MacDonald N.E., Eskola J., Liang X., Chaudhuri M., Dube E., Gellin B. Vaccine hesitancy: Definition, scope and determinants. Vaccine. 2015;33:4161–4164. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.04.036. - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization (WHO) Ten Threats to Global Health in 2019. [(accessed on 20 December 2020)];2019 Available online: https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-....
    1. De Figueiredo A., Simas C., Karafillakis E., Paterson P., Larson H.J. Mapping global trends in vaccine confidence and investigating barriers to vaccine uptake: A large-scale retrospective temporal modelling study. Lancet. 2020;396:898–908. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31558-0. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang J., Jing R., Lai X., Zhang H., Lyu Y., Knoll M.D. Acceptance of covid-19 vaccination during the covid-19 pandemic in china. Vaccines. 2020;8:482. doi: 10.3390/vaccines8030482. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources