Cargando…
Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose major restrictions on individual freedom in order to stop the spread of the virus. With the successful development of a vaccine, these restrictions are likely to become obsolete—on the condition that people get vaccinated. However, parts of the...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer US
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8206899/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34149102 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09428-0 |
_version_ | 1783708699604287488 |
---|---|
author | Debus, Marc Tosun, Jale |
author_facet | Debus, Marc Tosun, Jale |
author_sort | Debus, Marc |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose major restrictions on individual freedom in order to stop the spread of the virus. With the successful development of a vaccine, these restrictions are likely to become obsolete—on the condition that people get vaccinated. However, parts of the population have reservations against vaccination. While this is not a recent phenomenon, it might prove a critical one in the context of current attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the task of designing policies suitable for attaining high levels of vaccination deserves enhanced attention. In this study, we use data from the Eurobarometer survey fielded in March 2019. They show that 39% of Europeans consider vaccines to cause the diseases which they should protect against, that 50% believe vaccines have serious side effects, that 32% think that vaccines weaken the immune system, and that 10% do not believe vaccines are tested rigorously before authorization. We find that—even when controlling for important individual-level factors—ideological extremism on both ends of the spectrum explains skepticism of vaccination. We conclude that policymakers must either politicize the issue or form broad alliances among parties and societal groups in order to increase trust in and public support for the vaccines in general and for vaccines against COVID-19 in particular, since the latter were developed in a very short time period and resulted—in particular in case of the AstraZeneca vaccine—in reservations because of the effectiveness and side effects of the new vaccines. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11077-021-09428-0. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8206899 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer US |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82068992021-06-16 Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design Debus, Marc Tosun, Jale Policy Sci Discussion and Commentary The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to impose major restrictions on individual freedom in order to stop the spread of the virus. With the successful development of a vaccine, these restrictions are likely to become obsolete—on the condition that people get vaccinated. However, parts of the population have reservations against vaccination. While this is not a recent phenomenon, it might prove a critical one in the context of current attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the task of designing policies suitable for attaining high levels of vaccination deserves enhanced attention. In this study, we use data from the Eurobarometer survey fielded in March 2019. They show that 39% of Europeans consider vaccines to cause the diseases which they should protect against, that 50% believe vaccines have serious side effects, that 32% think that vaccines weaken the immune system, and that 10% do not believe vaccines are tested rigorously before authorization. We find that—even when controlling for important individual-level factors—ideological extremism on both ends of the spectrum explains skepticism of vaccination. We conclude that policymakers must either politicize the issue or form broad alliances among parties and societal groups in order to increase trust in and public support for the vaccines in general and for vaccines against COVID-19 in particular, since the latter were developed in a very short time period and resulted—in particular in case of the AstraZeneca vaccine—in reservations because of the effectiveness and side effects of the new vaccines. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11077-021-09428-0. Springer US 2021-06-16 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8206899/ /pubmed/34149102 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09428-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Discussion and Commentary Debus, Marc Tosun, Jale Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title | Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title_full | Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title_fullStr | Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title_full_unstemmed | Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title_short | Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
title_sort | political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design |
topic | Discussion and Commentary |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8206899/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34149102 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09428-0 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT debusmarc politicalideologyandvaccinationwillingnessimplicationsforpolicydesign AT tosunjale politicalideologyandvaccinationwillingnessimplicationsforpolicydesign |