COVID-19 vaccination acceptance in the canton of Geneva: a cross-sectional population-based study

  1. Ania Wisniak
  2. Hélène Baysson
  3. Nick Pullen
  4. Mayssam Nehme
  5. Francesco Pennacchio
  6. María-Eugenia Zaballa
  7. Idris Guessous
  8. Silvia Stringhini

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination as well as its sociodemographic and clinical determinants, 3 months after the launch of the vaccination programme in Geneva, Switzerland. METHODS In March 2021, an online questionnaire was proposed to adults included in a longitudinal cohort study of previous SARS-CoV-2 serosurveys carried out in the canton of Geneva, which included former participants of a population-based health survey as well as individuals randomly sampled from population registries, and their household members. Questions were asked about COVID-19 vaccination acceptance, reasons for acceptance or refusal and attitudes to vaccination in general. Data on demographic (age, sex, education, income, professional status, living conditions) and health-related characteristics (having a chronic disease, COVID-19 diagnosis, smoking status) were assessed at inclusion in the cohort (December 2020). The overall vaccination acceptance was standardised according to the age, sex, and education distribution in the Geneva population. RESULTS: Overall, 4067 participants (completion rate of 77.4%) responded to the survey between 17 March and 1 April 2021. The mean age of respondents was 53.3 years and 56.0% were women. At the time of the survey, 17.2% of respondents had already been vaccinated with at least one dose or had made an appointment to get vaccinated, and an additional 58.5% intended or rather intended to get vaccinated. The overall acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination standardised to the age, sex and education distribution of the population of Geneva was 71.8%, with a higher acceptance among men than women, older adults compared with younger adults, high-income individuals compared with those with a low income, and participants living in urban and semi-urban areas compared with rural areas. Acceptance was lower among individuals having completed apprenticeships and secondary education than those with tertiary education. The most common reasons reported by participants intending to get vaccinated were the desire to "get back to normal", to protect themselves, their community and/or society,and their relatives or friends against the risk of infection by SARS-CoV-2, as well as the desire to travel. Less than half (45.6%) of participants having children were willing or rather willing to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19 if it were recommended by public health authorities. CONCLUSION: Although our study found a 71.8% weighted acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination, there were noticeable sociodemographic disparities in vaccination acceptance. These data will be useful for public health measures targeting hesitant populations when developing health communication strategies.

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  1. Version published to 10.4414/smw.2021.w30080
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260024: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: Part of the content was developed in the framework of the Corona Immunitas research program, a national program aiming to coordinate regional SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence studies across Switzerland.24 The questionnaire measured COVID-19 vaccination status, intention to get vaccinated, reasons to get vaccinated, reasons for refusing vaccination, vaccination-related beliefs (e.g., perceived efficacy, perceived safety, preference for natural immunity), perceived utility of COVID-19 vaccination, willingness to vaccinate one’s children against COVID-19, and attitude towards vaccination in general.
    Consent: Ethical Considerations: All participants of the Specchio-COVID19 digital platform provided informed and written consent upon enrolment in the study.
    IRB: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Cantonal Research Ethics Commission of Geneva, Switzerland (project number 2020-00881).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationStudy design, setting and sample: This population-based cross-sectional study was embedded in a longitudinal digital cohort study called Specchio-COVID19, which was launched in December 2020 to follow up over time participants of serosurveys conducted in the canton of Geneva.22 Serosurvey participants were randomly selected from the general population at two time points: 1) between April and June 2020, participants were enrolled from a previous general health survey representative of the population of the Canton of Geneva aged between 20 and 75 years old23, and 2) between November and December 2020, participants were randomly selected from registries of the Canton of Geneva stratified by age and sex15.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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:
    Strengths and limitations: The main strengths of this study are is its large sample size with all adult ages represented, as well as the availability of data on sociodemographic (age, sex, education level, income) and health-related characteristics (serologic status, chronic diseases, smoking status) which allowed stratification of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance according to these factors. Very little research has been conducted on the drivers of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance now that vaccination is available to the general population. Indeed, most previous studies carried out globally were conducted in periods when COVID-19 vaccines were not available or accessible only to certain groups, such as healthcare workers or key workers.43,44 It is also of outright importance to investigate the factors influencing perception of COVID-19 vaccination at the local level, as vaccination hesitancy may be widely influenced by regional and cultural factors. Several limitations of our study should be acknowledged. Although participation rate in this study was high, generalization of the results presented here requires caution as our sample is not completely representative of the general population of the canton of Geneva. While we mitigated this by collecting and adjusting our results for important socio-demographic characteristics, a selection bias remains. Participation required French literacy, internet access and digital literacy, potentially excluding part of the general population. Re...

    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.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.05.21260024v1 on medRxiv