Abstract
Background: Faced with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the development of COVID-19 vaccines has been progressing at an unprecedented rate. This study aimed to evaluate the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination in China and give suggestions for vaccination strategies and immunization programs accordingly. Methods: In March 2020, an anonymous cross-sectional survey was conducted online among Chinese adults. The questionnaire collected socio-demographic characteristics, risk perception, the impact of COVID-19, attitudes, acceptance and attribute preferences of vaccines against COVID-19 during the pandemic. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify the influencing factors of vaccination acceptance. Results: Of the 2058 participants surveyed, 1879 (91.3%) stated that they would accept COVID-19 vaccination after the vaccine becomes available, among whom 980 (52.2%) wanted to get vaccinated as soon as possible, while others (47.8%) would delay the vaccination until the vaccine’s safety was confirmed. Participants preferred a routine immunization schedule (49.4%) to emergency vaccination (9.0%) or either of them (41.6%). Logistic regression showed that being male, being married, perceiving a high risk of infection, being vaccinated against influenza in the past season, believing in the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination or valuing doctor’s recommendations could increase the probability of accepting COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible, while having confirmed or suspected cases in local areas, valuing vaccination convenience or vaccine price in decision-making could hinder participants from immediate vaccination. Conclusion: During the pandemic period, a strong demand for and high acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination has been shown among the Chinese population, while concerns about vaccine safety may hinder the promotion of vaccine uptake. To expand vaccination coverage, immunization programs should be designed to remove barriers in terms of vaccine price and vaccination convenience, and health education and communication from authoritative sources are important ways to alleviate public concerns about vaccine safety.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed a heavy disease burden around the world, and there are currently no specific antiviral treatments for COVID-19 [1,2,3].As immunization is one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions to prevent infectious diseases, vaccines against COVID-19 are considered to be of great importance to prevent and control COVID-19 [4,5]
Vaccine acceptance reflects the overall perception of disease risk, vaccine attitudes and demand within the general population, which is critical for the success of immunization programs to attain high vaccination coverage rates, especially for newly emerging infectious diseases [7,8,9]
Reports on the acceptance and uptake of pandemic vaccines, such as for the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, have shown unsatisfying results, as the willingness to receive the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccine among the general public ranged from 17% to 67% across studies from Australia, America, Greece, the UK and France [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]
Summary
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has imposed a heavy disease burden around the world, and there are currently no specific antiviral treatments for COVID-19 [1,2,3].As immunization is one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions to prevent infectious diseases, vaccines against COVID-19 are considered to be of great importance to prevent and control COVID-19 [4,5]. Vaccine acceptance reflects the overall perception of disease risk, vaccine attitudes and demand within the general population, which is critical for the success of immunization programs to attain high vaccination coverage rates, especially for newly emerging infectious diseases [7,8,9]. Logistic regression showed that being male, being married, perceiving a high risk of infection, being vaccinated against influenza in the past season, believing in the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination or valuing doctor’s recommendations could increase the probability of accepting COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible, while having confirmed or suspected cases in local areas, valuing vaccination convenience or vaccine price in decision-making could hinder participants from immediate vaccination. Immunization programs should be designed to remove barriers in terms of vaccine price and vaccination convenience, and health education and communication from authoritative sources are important ways to alleviate public concerns about vaccine safety
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