Indirect Effects of COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions on Vaccine Acceptance
The information set from which individuals make their decision on vaccination includes signals from trusted agents, such as governments, community leaders, and the media. By implementing restrictions, or by relaxing them, governments can provide a...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC : World Bank
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099718106242240071/IDU0d895ede303c2b049020a4700327998778544 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37628 |
| Summary: | The information set from which
individuals make their decision on vaccination includes
signals from trusted agents, such as governments, community
leaders, and the media. By implementing restrictions, or by
relaxing them, governments can provide a signal about the
underlying risk of the pandemic and indirectly affect
vaccination take-up. Rather than focusing on measures
specifically designed to increase vaccine acceptance, this
paper studies how governments’ nonpharmaceutical policy
responses to the pandemic can modify the degree of
preventive health behavior, including vaccination. To do so,
the paper uses repeated waves of a global survey on COVID-19
beliefs, behaviors, and norms covering 67 countries from
August 2020 to February 2021. Controlling for the usual
determinants, the analysis explores how individuals’
willingness to get vaccinated is affected by changes in
government restriction measures (as measured by the Oxford
Stringency Index). This relationship is mediated by
individual characteristics, social norms (social pressure to
conform with what most people do), and trust in government
institutions. The results point to a complex picture as the
implementation of restrictions is associated with increased
acceptance in some contexts and decreased acceptance in
others. The stringency of government restrictions has
significant positive correlations with vaccine acceptance in
contexts of weak social norms of vaccine acceptance and
lower trust in government. In countries or communities where
social norms are tighter and trust in government health
authorities is high, vaccine acceptance is high but less
sensitive to changes in policies. These results suggest that
the indirect effect of government policy stringency is
stronger among individuals who report lower trust and weaker
social norms of vaccine acceptance. |
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