Psychological factors underpinning vaccine willingness in Israel, Japan and Hungary

  1. Robin Goodwin
  2. Menachem Ben-Ezra
  3. Masahito Takahashi
  4. Lan-Anh Nguyen Luu
  5. Krisztina Borsfay
  6. Mónika Kovács
  7. Wai Kai Hou
  8. Yaira Hamama-Raz
  9. Yafit Levin

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Abstract

The spread of SARS-CoV-2 led to rapid vaccine development. However, there remains considerable vaccine hesitancy in some countries. We investigate vaccine willingness in three nations with very different vaccine histories: Israel, Japan and Hungary. Employing an ecological-systems approach we analyse associations between health status, individual cognitions, norms, trust in government, COVID-19 myths and willingness to be vaccinated, with data from three nationally representative samples (Israel, Jan. 2021, N = 1011; Japan, Feb. 2021, N = 997; Hungary, April 2021, N = 1130). Vaccine willingness was higher in Israel (74%) than Japan (51%) or Hungary (31%). In all three countries vaccine willingness was greatest amongst who would regret not being vaccinated and respondents who trusted their government. Multi-group latent class analysis identified three groups of COVID myths, with particular concern about alteration of DNA (Israel), allergies (Hungary) and infection from the vaccine (Japan). Intervention campaigns should address such cultural myths while emphasising both individual and social benefits of vaccination.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-021-03986-2
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.24.21257465: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical approval was from Ariel University’s Institutional Review Board (No. AU-SOC-MBE-20201224), the Yamaguchi University Review Committee for Non-Medical Research Involving Human Participants (2020-004-01) and the Eötvös Loránd University ethical review panel (PPK KEB 2021/130-2).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: Our studies benefitted by including national samples from three very different cultures, at different stages in their vaccination programmes and with different histories of vaccine uptake. We go beyond most literature on vaccine uptake and hesitancy by examining vaccine willingness in an expanded model incorporating different ‘levels’ of influences: demographic, cognitive and societal, and by examining in more detail the structure of misbeliefs about the vaccine, by culture. However, we recognise a number of limitations to our survey. First, samples were cross-sectional, and were therefore not able to assess predictors of vaccine willingness over time. Data was first collected in early January, at the start of the first major vaccine roll-out, meaning that we did not include later misbeliefs that emerged in subsequent months and which often focused on the association between vaccination and government/’big Tec’ control and monitoring. This may be particularly importance with the arrival of new variants of concern that have challenged potential vaccine efficacy. In addition, emergent concerns over vaccine safety (such as worries about blood clotting following the AstraZenica vaccine53) may serve to directly inhibit uptake and perpetuate further new misbeliefs and distrust. Second, because of the speed of the evolving vaccination situation in both countries (the rapid programme vaccination in Israel, the introduction of vaccination in Japan) our survey companies ex...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.24.21257465v1 on medRxiv