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What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System

Introduction: Italy was one of the earliest countries to experience a severe COVID-19 epidemic and vaccinating the elderly, who constitute 23% of the population and have experienced the highest mortality rates, is a top priority. Estimating prevalences and understanding risk factors for COVID-19 vac...

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Autores principales: Contoli, Benedetta, Possenti, Valentina, Minardi, Valentina, Binkin, Nancy J., Ramigni, Mauro, Carrozzi, Giuliano, Masocco, Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602068/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34805065
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.736976
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author Contoli, Benedetta
Possenti, Valentina
Minardi, Valentina
Binkin, Nancy J.
Ramigni, Mauro
Carrozzi, Giuliano
Masocco, Maria
author_facet Contoli, Benedetta
Possenti, Valentina
Minardi, Valentina
Binkin, Nancy J.
Ramigni, Mauro
Carrozzi, Giuliano
Masocco, Maria
author_sort Contoli, Benedetta
collection PubMed
description Introduction: Italy was one of the earliest countries to experience a severe COVID-19 epidemic and vaccinating the elderly, who constitute 23% of the population and have experienced the highest mortality rates, is a top priority. Estimating prevalences and understanding risk factors for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or refusal are important for development of targeted interventions. Methods: We used data from a specially developed COVID-19 module of PASSI D'Argento, an ongoing surveillance system of residents 65+ years of age to measure the prevalence and identify risk factors for hesitancy and refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. We calculated multinomial regression relative risk ratios to examine the association between demographic characteristics, health status, COVID-19 attitudes and experiences and likely vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Results: Of the 1876 respondents, 55% reported they would accept vaccination and 16% would likely refuse; the remaining 29% were categorized as hesitant. Compared with the acceptance group, we identified several risk factors in common between the hesitancy group and the refusal group, including not having received vaccination against influenza during the previous flu season (hesitancy: RRR = 2.0; 95% CI 1.4–2.9; refusal: RRR = 12.1; 95%CI 7.6–19.4) and lower risk of having had a death from COVID-19 among family or friends (hesitancy: RRR = 4.8; 95%CI 2.0–11.4; refusal: RRR = 15.4; 95%CI 3.7–64.5). The hesitancy group was significantly more likely being worried and they did not know if consequences of the disease would be serious for them. Conclusion: Our findings show the importance of establishing and maintaining active contact between the preventive services, primary care providers and the population because trust is difficult to establish during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. Italian public health is based on a capillary network of general practitioners and having them reach out to their patients who have not previously received influenza vaccine may be a useful strategy for targeting efforts to further encourage uptake of COVID-19 vaccination.
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spelling pubmed-86020682021-11-20 What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System Contoli, Benedetta Possenti, Valentina Minardi, Valentina Binkin, Nancy J. Ramigni, Mauro Carrozzi, Giuliano Masocco, Maria Front Public Health Public Health Introduction: Italy was one of the earliest countries to experience a severe COVID-19 epidemic and vaccinating the elderly, who constitute 23% of the population and have experienced the highest mortality rates, is a top priority. Estimating prevalences and understanding risk factors for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or refusal are important for development of targeted interventions. Methods: We used data from a specially developed COVID-19 module of PASSI D'Argento, an ongoing surveillance system of residents 65+ years of age to measure the prevalence and identify risk factors for hesitancy and refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. We calculated multinomial regression relative risk ratios to examine the association between demographic characteristics, health status, COVID-19 attitudes and experiences and likely vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Results: Of the 1876 respondents, 55% reported they would accept vaccination and 16% would likely refuse; the remaining 29% were categorized as hesitant. Compared with the acceptance group, we identified several risk factors in common between the hesitancy group and the refusal group, including not having received vaccination against influenza during the previous flu season (hesitancy: RRR = 2.0; 95% CI 1.4–2.9; refusal: RRR = 12.1; 95%CI 7.6–19.4) and lower risk of having had a death from COVID-19 among family or friends (hesitancy: RRR = 4.8; 95%CI 2.0–11.4; refusal: RRR = 15.4; 95%CI 3.7–64.5). The hesitancy group was significantly more likely being worried and they did not know if consequences of the disease would be serious for them. Conclusion: Our findings show the importance of establishing and maintaining active contact between the preventive services, primary care providers and the population because trust is difficult to establish during an emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic. Italian public health is based on a capillary network of general practitioners and having them reach out to their patients who have not previously received influenza vaccine may be a useful strategy for targeting efforts to further encourage uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-11-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8602068/ /pubmed/34805065 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.736976 Text en Copyright © 2021 Contoli, Possenti, Minardi, Binkin, Ramigni, Carrozzi and Masocco. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Contoli, Benedetta
Possenti, Valentina
Minardi, Valentina
Binkin, Nancy J.
Ramigni, Mauro
Carrozzi, Giuliano
Masocco, Maria
What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title_full What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title_fullStr What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title_full_unstemmed What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title_short What Is the Willingness to Receive Vaccination Against COVID-19 Among the Elderly in Italy? Data From the PASSI d'Argento Surveillance System
title_sort what is the willingness to receive vaccination against covid-19 among the elderly in italy? data from the passi d'argento surveillance system
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8602068/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34805065
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.736976
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