Tanimoto, Jun and Hyland, Philip and Vallières, Frédérique and Hartman, Todd K. and McKay, Ryan and Butter, Sarah and Bentall, Richard P. and McBride, Orla and Shevlin, Mark and Bennett, Kate and Mason, Liam and Gibson-Miller, Jilly and Levita, Liat and Martinez, Anton P. and Stocks, Thomas V. A. and Karatzias, Thanos and Murphy, Jamie (2021) Detecting and describing stability and change in COVID-19 vaccine receptibility in the United Kingdom and Ireland. PLOS ONE, 16 (11). e0258871. ISSN 1932-6203

Preview

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

COVID-19 continues to pose a threat to global public health. Multiple safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 are available with one-third of the global population now vaccinated. Achieving a sufficient level of vaccine coverage to suppress COVID-19 requires, in part, sufficient acceptance among the public. However, relatively high rates of hesitance and resistance to COVID-19 vaccination persists, threating public health efforts to achieve vaccine-induced population protection. In this study, we examined longitudinal changes in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, hesitance, and resistance in two nations (the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) during the first nine months of the pandemic, and identified individual and psychological factors associated with consistent non-acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination. Using nationally representative, longitudinal data from the United Kingdom (UK; N = 2025) and Ireland (N = 1041), we found that (1) COVID-19 vaccine acceptance declined in the UK and remained unchanged in Ireland following the emergence of approved vaccines; (2) multiple subgroups existed reflecting people who were consistently willing to be vaccinated (‘Accepters’: 68% in the UK and 61% in Ireland), consistently unwilling to be vaccinated (‘Deniers’: 12% in the UK and 16% in Ireland), and who fluctuated over time (‘Moveable Middle’: 20% in the UK and 23% in Ireland); and (3) the ‘deniers’ and ‘moveable middle’ were distinguishable from the ‘accepters’ on a range of individual (e.g., younger, low income, living alone) and psychological (e.g., distrust of scientists and doctors, conspiracy mindedness) factors. The use of two high-income, Western European nations limits the generalizability of these findings. Nevertheless, understanding how receptibility to COVID-19 vaccination changes as the pandemic unfolds, and the factors that distinguish and characterise those that are hesitant and resistant to vaccination is helpful for public health efforts to achieve vaccine-induced population protection against COVID-19.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Cite as: : Hyland P, Vallières F, Hartman TK, McKay R, Butter S, Bentall RP, et al. (2021) Detecting and describing stability and change in COVID-19 vaccine receptibility in the United Kingdom and Ireland. PLoS ONE 16(11): e0258871. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258871 Copyright: © 2021 Hyland et al. 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
Keywords:	COVID-19; vaccine coverage; acceptance among the public;
Academic Unit:	Assisting Living & Learning,ALL institute Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	17013
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258871
Depositing User:	Philip Hyland
Date Deposited:	09 Mar 2023 12:18
Journal or Publication Title:	PLOS ONE
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads

Origin of downloads