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Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 5.2 million deaths. Vaccine hesitancy remains a public health challenge, especially in Eastern Europe. Our study used a sample of essential workers living in the Republic of North Macedonia to: (1) Describe rates of vaccine hesitancy and risk perception of...

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Autores principales: Fucaloro, Stephen P., Yacoubian, Vahe S., Piltch-Loeb, Rachael, Harriman, Nigel Walsh, Burmaz, Tea, Hadji-Janev, Metodi, Savoia, Elena
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8950427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35334980
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030348
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author Fucaloro, Stephen P.
Yacoubian, Vahe S.
Piltch-Loeb, Rachael
Harriman, Nigel Walsh
Burmaz, Tea
Hadji-Janev, Metodi
Savoia, Elena
author_facet Fucaloro, Stephen P.
Yacoubian, Vahe S.
Piltch-Loeb, Rachael
Harriman, Nigel Walsh
Burmaz, Tea
Hadji-Janev, Metodi
Savoia, Elena
author_sort Fucaloro, Stephen P.
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 5.2 million deaths. Vaccine hesitancy remains a public health challenge, especially in Eastern Europe. Our study used a sample of essential workers living in the Republic of North Macedonia to: (1) Describe rates of vaccine hesitancy and risk perception of COVID-19; (2) Explore predictors of vaccine hesitancy; and (3) Describe the informational needs of hesitant and non-hesitant workers. A phone survey was administered in North Macedonia from 4–16 May 2021. Logistic regression explored associations of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy with sociodemographic characteristics, non-COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, previous diagnosis of COVID-19, and individual risk perception of contracting COVID-19. Chi-squared analyses compared differences in informational needs by hesitancy status. Of 1003 individuals, 44% were very likely to get the vaccine, and 56% reported some level of hesitancy. Older age, Albanian ethnicity, increased education, previous COVID-19 diagnosis, acceptance of other vaccines, and increased risk perception of COVID-19 infection were negatively associated with vaccine hesitancy. Results indicated significant differences in top informational needs by hesitancy status. The top informational needs of the hesitant were the freedom to choose to be vaccinated without consequences (57% vs. 42%, p < 0.01) and that all main international agencies recommended the vaccine (35% vs. 24%, p < 0.01).
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spelling pubmed-89504272022-03-26 Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia Fucaloro, Stephen P. Yacoubian, Vahe S. Piltch-Loeb, Rachael Harriman, Nigel Walsh Burmaz, Tea Hadji-Janev, Metodi Savoia, Elena Vaccines (Basel) Article The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 5.2 million deaths. Vaccine hesitancy remains a public health challenge, especially in Eastern Europe. Our study used a sample of essential workers living in the Republic of North Macedonia to: (1) Describe rates of vaccine hesitancy and risk perception of COVID-19; (2) Explore predictors of vaccine hesitancy; and (3) Describe the informational needs of hesitant and non-hesitant workers. A phone survey was administered in North Macedonia from 4–16 May 2021. Logistic regression explored associations of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy with sociodemographic characteristics, non-COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, previous diagnosis of COVID-19, and individual risk perception of contracting COVID-19. Chi-squared analyses compared differences in informational needs by hesitancy status. Of 1003 individuals, 44% were very likely to get the vaccine, and 56% reported some level of hesitancy. Older age, Albanian ethnicity, increased education, previous COVID-19 diagnosis, acceptance of other vaccines, and increased risk perception of COVID-19 infection were negatively associated with vaccine hesitancy. Results indicated significant differences in top informational needs by hesitancy status. The top informational needs of the hesitant were the freedom to choose to be vaccinated without consequences (57% vs. 42%, p < 0.01) and that all main international agencies recommended the vaccine (35% vs. 24%, p < 0.01). MDPI 2022-02-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8950427/ /pubmed/35334980 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030348 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Fucaloro, Stephen P.
Yacoubian, Vahe S.
Piltch-Loeb, Rachael
Harriman, Nigel Walsh
Burmaz, Tea
Hadji-Janev, Metodi
Savoia, Elena
Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title_full Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title_fullStr Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title_full_unstemmed Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title_short Essential Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, Misinformation, and Informational Needs in the Republic of North Macedonia
title_sort essential workers’ covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and informational needs in the republic of north macedonia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8950427/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35334980
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10030348
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