A British study on adherence to Covid vaccines shows which of the initial reasons for skepticism are most easily overcome.
Why are some people reluctant to get vaccinated? And what do we need to work on to counter the hesitancy to undergo vaccines that can avoid hospitalization and save lives? Useful indications come from an English study conducted in the crucial phase of the CoViD-19 pandemic, the results of which were published in Lancet.
The research shows that the type of motivation why people hesitate in front of vaccines is fundamental to understand if these people will be able to change their position later and allow themselves to be vaccinated.
Measurements of uncertainty
The analysis, conducted by a group of scientists from Imperial College London coordinated by the computational epidemiologist Marc Chadeau-Hyam, is based on data from 1.1 million citizens of the United Kingdom, followed from January 2021 to March 2022. The researchers cross-referenced data from the REACT study, which monitored the proportion of individuals suffering from covid over the course of the pandemic together with their demographic data, with that of the National Health Service, which collected information on their adherence to the vaccination campaign.
Over the 14 months of the study, approximately 38,000 people among those followed reported some form of hesitancy when faced with vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, a hesitancy rate of 3.3%. The percentage of hesitaters, however, has not always been the same: it reached a peak of 8% at the beginning of 2021, when the anti-covid vaccines were distributed for the first time, before reaching a minimum of 1.1% at the beginning of 2022, and finally rising again to 2.2%. In the end, however, 65% of those who had initially expressed doubts got vaccinated at a later time.
The reason for the “no” matters
There are various reasons for vaccination hesitancy, which scientists have grouped into 8 macro-categories: among these there are, for example, reasons relating to the effectiveness of vaccines or possible side effects, personal medical reasons, logistical difficulties in reaching the vaccination site, lack of trust in scientists or vaccine producers. The most common causes of vaccine hesitancy were doubts about the effectiveness of vaccines and health concerns, but these reasons were also the easiest to overcome. Instead, those linked to a skeptical and disillusioned attitude towards science have been more difficult to undermine.
The contexts most at risk
Vaccine hesitancy – as well as reluctance, even afterwards, to be vaccinated – was more common in economically disadvantaged areas, among those who were unemployed and had had a low level of education. Women were more often in doubt than men, but also less difficult to convince after they had expressed their concerns: this was perhaps due to the temporary nature of certain states, such as breastfeeding or pregnancy, which had led them to hesitate.
Today we know that anti-covid vaccines during pregnancy are not only safe, but also recommended.
What do we do with it?
The study can provide indications on the most widespread reasons for vaccination hesitancy and on how to work with different groups of the reluctant population. In general, it emerges that transparent and easily reproducible communication on vaccines is the key to reaching even those who had expressed initial resistance. However, it is not certain that what has been valid for anti-covid vaccines will also work well with the new forms of hesitation in the face of vaccines that have been widespread for some time: such as those against measles or flu, which today depend more on systematic misinformation on the part of health authorities, than on the lack of knowledge of the vaccines themselves.
