Cargando…

Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria

In spite of findings highlighting higher health risk from infection compared to younger people, a certain percentage of older people in Austria still lack a valid vaccination certificate. The current gaps in vaccination coverage in countries such as Austria are likely to be in large part due to vacc...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Richter, Lukas, Schreml, Stephan, Heidinger, Theresa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9204173/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35719668
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.859024
_version_ 1784728858175471616
author Richter, Lukas
Schreml, Stephan
Heidinger, Theresa
author_facet Richter, Lukas
Schreml, Stephan
Heidinger, Theresa
author_sort Richter, Lukas
collection PubMed
description In spite of findings highlighting higher health risk from infection compared to younger people, a certain percentage of older people in Austria still lack a valid vaccination certificate. The current gaps in vaccination coverage in countries such as Austria are likely to be in large part due to vaccination refusal and pose or will pose problems for the health system and consequently for all of society should the initial findings on Omicron coronavirus infectivity prove true. Surprisingly, only a few studies around the globe explicitly address older people's COVID-19 vaccination willingness. The present work therefore intends to contribute to this field by identifying factors associated with the decision for or against a vaccination among the older population in Austria. Data collected between late 2020 and early 2021 via the cross-national panel study Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) are used to perform multinomial logistic regression to analyse differences between COVID-19 vaccination supporters, undecided persons and rejectors. The results show that persons exhibiting a low risk assessment toward COVID-19, less health protection behaviors, lower education and belonging to households with financial burdens are significantly more likely to refuse vaccination or be ambivalent. Although multimorbidity reduces risk of vaccination refusal, poor subjective health was significantly related to a higher risk of refusing vaccination. The results point to the importance of addressing the factors related to refusal. Only by understanding these factors will it be possible to increase vaccination rates and thus minimize other restrictive measures.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9204173
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-92041732022-06-18 Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria Richter, Lukas Schreml, Stephan Heidinger, Theresa Front Public Health Public Health In spite of findings highlighting higher health risk from infection compared to younger people, a certain percentage of older people in Austria still lack a valid vaccination certificate. The current gaps in vaccination coverage in countries such as Austria are likely to be in large part due to vaccination refusal and pose or will pose problems for the health system and consequently for all of society should the initial findings on Omicron coronavirus infectivity prove true. Surprisingly, only a few studies around the globe explicitly address older people's COVID-19 vaccination willingness. The present work therefore intends to contribute to this field by identifying factors associated with the decision for or against a vaccination among the older population in Austria. Data collected between late 2020 and early 2021 via the cross-national panel study Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) are used to perform multinomial logistic regression to analyse differences between COVID-19 vaccination supporters, undecided persons and rejectors. The results show that persons exhibiting a low risk assessment toward COVID-19, less health protection behaviors, lower education and belonging to households with financial burdens are significantly more likely to refuse vaccination or be ambivalent. Although multimorbidity reduces risk of vaccination refusal, poor subjective health was significantly related to a higher risk of refusing vaccination. The results point to the importance of addressing the factors related to refusal. Only by understanding these factors will it be possible to increase vaccination rates and thus minimize other restrictive measures. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9204173/ /pubmed/35719668 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.859024 Text en Copyright © 2022 Richter, Schreml and Heidinger. 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
Richter, Lukas
Schreml, Stephan
Heidinger, Theresa
Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title_full Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title_fullStr Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title_full_unstemmed Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title_short Ready for Vaccination? COVID-19 Vaccination Willingness of Older People in Austria
title_sort ready for vaccination? covid-19 vaccination willingness of older people in austria
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9204173/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35719668
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.859024
work_keys_str_mv AT richterlukas readyforvaccinationcovid19vaccinationwillingnessofolderpeopleinaustria
AT schremlstephan readyforvaccinationcovid19vaccinationwillingnessofolderpeopleinaustria
AT heidingertheresa readyforvaccinationcovid19vaccinationwillingnessofolderpeopleinaustria