How are sociodemographic factors associated with 2020/2021 seasonal influenza vaccination behavior under the COVID-19 pandemic?

  1. Takahiro Mori
  2. Tomohisa Nagata
  3. Kazunori Ikegami
  4. Ayako Hino
  5. Seiichiro Tateishi
  6. Mayumi Tsuji
  7. Shinya Matsuda
  8. Yoshihisa Fujino
  9. Koji Mori
  10. the CORoNaWork project

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Abstract

The 2020/2021 seasonal influenza vaccination was carried out under unique situations during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Examining the factors affecting vaccine inoculation in a pandemic situation may provide valuable insights. The purpose of the current study was to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the 2020/2021 seasonal influenza vaccine intake. A cross-sectional study was conducted on workers aged 20–65 years on December 22–25, 2020, using data from an Internet survey. We set the presence or absence of 2020/2021 seasonal influenza vaccination as the dependent variable, and each aspect of sociodemographic factors, including gender, age, marital status, education, annual household income, and underlying disease, as independent variables. We performed a multilevel logistic regression analysis nested by residence. In total, 26,637 respondents (13,600 men, 13,037 women) participated, and a total of 11,404 individuals (42.8%) received the 2020/2021 influenza vaccine. Significantly more women than men were vaccinated, and the vaccination rate was higher among younger adults, married people, highly educated people, high-income earners, and those with underlying disease. The current results suggested that the relationship between seasonal influenza vaccination behavior and sociodemographic factors differed from the results reported in previous studies in terms of age. These findings suggest that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, young people may have become more aware of the risk of contracting influenza and of the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine. In addition, information interventions may have had a positive effect.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.30.21256364: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Participants provided informed consent before answering the questionnaire.
    IRB: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan (Approval No. R2-079). 2.2.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    All analyses were performed using STATA Version 16 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA).
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: There were several limitations to this study. First, because we conducted an Internet survey, selection bias might have occurred. Although we stratified by cluster sampling according to gender, age, and region of residence at the beginning of the survey to reduce bias, the survey was intended for people registered as an online survey panel and was not representative of the general population. Second, regarding influenza vaccination, we asked subjects whether they were vaccinated between December 22 and 26 in 2020, when the survey was conducted; therefore, those who were vaccinated after that time and those scheduled to be vaccinated were not included. In particular, the 2020/2021 influenza vaccine has been in short supply in some areas and medical institutions owing to high demand for vaccination because of the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in some cases there was a long waiting time before inoculation. However, since vaccination started at the end of October in Japan, it was probable that those who had decided to be inoculated had collected information on supply shortages and made reservations and vaccinations early. Furthermore, regarding risk preference, we adopted a common evaluation question that is often used but, because there was only one question, detailed evaluation was difficult. Third, although it has been pointed out that vaccine hesitancy can be affected by various psychological factors, there might be some items that could not be adjusted...

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.30.21256364 on medRxiv