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Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology
BACKGROUND: Public hesitancy towards Covid-19 vaccines remains a major hurdle for mass vaccination programs today. While mRNA vaccines are more efficacious than conventional vaccines, it is unknown how much the novelty of this technology increases hesitancy. METHODS: We quantify this “novelty penalt...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9156695/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35664455 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43856-022-00123-6 |
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author | Leong, Ching Jin, Lawrence Kim, Dayoung Kim, Jeongbin Teo, Yik Ying Ho, Teck-Hua |
author_facet | Leong, Ching Jin, Lawrence Kim, Dayoung Kim, Jeongbin Teo, Yik Ying Ho, Teck-Hua |
author_sort | Leong, Ching |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Public hesitancy towards Covid-19 vaccines remains a major hurdle for mass vaccination programs today. While mRNA vaccines are more efficacious than conventional vaccines, it is unknown how much the novelty of this technology increases hesitancy. METHODS: We quantify this “novelty penalty” in a large online experiment with 35,173 adults in nine countries. Subjects were randomly selected and assigned to one of two vaccine groups (conventional or mRNA), and one of five hypothetical inoculation rate groups (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, or 80%). Subjects reported their willingness to accept the Covid-19 vaccine on a five-point Likert scale. RESULTS: The novelty of the mRNA vaccine technology reduces the odds of a higher level of vaccine acceptance by 14.2% (odds ratio 0.858; p < 0.001). On the other hand, we find that social conformity reduces vaccine hesitancy. At a 0% inoculation rate, 31.7% report that they are “very likely” to get a mRNA vaccine while at a 20% inoculation rate, willingness jumps to 49.6%. CONCLUSIONS: The novelty of the mRNA vaccine increases hesitancy, but social conformity reduces it. A small group of early adopters can provide momentum for vaccination. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9156695 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-91566952022-06-02 Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology Leong, Ching Jin, Lawrence Kim, Dayoung Kim, Jeongbin Teo, Yik Ying Ho, Teck-Hua Commun Med (Lond) Article BACKGROUND: Public hesitancy towards Covid-19 vaccines remains a major hurdle for mass vaccination programs today. While mRNA vaccines are more efficacious than conventional vaccines, it is unknown how much the novelty of this technology increases hesitancy. METHODS: We quantify this “novelty penalty” in a large online experiment with 35,173 adults in nine countries. Subjects were randomly selected and assigned to one of two vaccine groups (conventional or mRNA), and one of five hypothetical inoculation rate groups (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, or 80%). Subjects reported their willingness to accept the Covid-19 vaccine on a five-point Likert scale. RESULTS: The novelty of the mRNA vaccine technology reduces the odds of a higher level of vaccine acceptance by 14.2% (odds ratio 0.858; p < 0.001). On the other hand, we find that social conformity reduces vaccine hesitancy. At a 0% inoculation rate, 31.7% report that they are “very likely” to get a mRNA vaccine while at a 20% inoculation rate, willingness jumps to 49.6%. CONCLUSIONS: The novelty of the mRNA vaccine increases hesitancy, but social conformity reduces it. A small group of early adopters can provide momentum for vaccination. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-05-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9156695/ /pubmed/35664455 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43856-022-00123-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This 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 license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license 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 license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Leong, Ching Jin, Lawrence Kim, Dayoung Kim, Jeongbin Teo, Yik Ying Ho, Teck-Hua Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title | Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title_full | Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title_fullStr | Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title_full_unstemmed | Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title_short | Assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards COVID-19 vaccines using mRNA technology |
title_sort | assessing the impact of novelty and conformity on hesitancy towards covid-19 vaccines using mrna technology |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9156695/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35664455 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43856-022-00123-6 |
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