What is the extent of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Bangladesh? A cross-sectional rapid national survey

  1. Mohammad Ali
  2. Ahmed Hossain

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Abstract

To assess COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Bangladesh and identify population subgroups with higher odds of vaccine hesitancy.

Design

A nationally representative cross-sectional survey was used for this study. Descriptive analyses helped to compute vaccine hesitancy proportions and compare them across groups. Multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to compute the adjusted OR.

Setting

Bangladesh.

Participants

A total of 1134 participants from the general population, aged 18 years and above participated in this study.

Outcome measures

Prevalence and predictors of vaccine hesitancy.

Results

Of the total participants, 32.5% showed COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Hesitancy was high among respondents who were men, over 60, unemployed, from low-income families, from central Bangladesh, including Dhaka, living in rented houses, tobacco users, politically affiliated, doubtful of the vaccine’s efficacy for Bangladeshis and those who did not have any physical illnesses in the past year. In the multiple logistic regression models, transgender respondents (adjusted OR, AOR=3.62), married individuals (AOR=1.49), tobacco users (AOR=1.33), those who had not experienced any physical illnesses in the past year (AOR=1.49), those with political affiliations with opposition parties (AOR=1.48), those who believed COVID-19 vaccines would not be effective for Bangladeshis (AOR=3.20), and those who were slightly concerned (AOR=2.87) or not concerned at all (AOR=7.45) about themselves or a family member getting infected with COVID-19 in the next year were significantly associated with vaccine hesitancy (p<0.05).

Conclusions

Given the high prevalence of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, in order to guarantee that COVID-19 vaccinations are widely distributed, the government and public health experts must be prepared to handle vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine awareness among potential recipients. To address these issues and support COVID-19 immunisation programs, evidence-based educational and policy-level initiatives must be undertaken especially for the poor, older and chronically diseased individuals.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050303
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.02.17.21251917: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableDesign and participants: In a cross-sectional study conducted in Bangladesh from 18 to 31 January 2021, male, female, and transgender persons aged 18 years and above were interviewed using a previously used, valid, and reliable vaccine hesitancy questionnaire [18].

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The significance level was set at <0.05 and SPSS version 22.0 (IBM Corp.) was used for data analyses.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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:
    This study result may have influenced by several limitations. Firstly, it is a cross-sectional study, and portrays a depiction of the community response at the climacteric of the study. Nonetheless, vaccine hesitancy is complex in disposition and adherence-specific, varying over time, location, and perceived behavioral nature of the community [33–35]. Secondly, social and traditional media influence are one of the major predictors of pandemic vaccine hesitancy and/or acceptance [36]. In our study, we did not examine the impact of media and this might have confounded the results. Additional research is warranted to address this issue. Despite these limitations, our study provides baseline evidence for the LMICs regarding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Furthermore, our study identifies many sub-groups of the general population that must be considered during vaccine hesitancy discussions. Finally, data collected by interviewing randomly selected participants from the north, south, and central zone including Dhaka would have given a better, nearly true representative of the population of Bangladesh in the sample which would have made the study results more plausible.

    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.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.02.17.21251917v1 on medRxiv