Action Cues Research Articles

A Two-Stream Method for Human Action Recognition Using Facial Action Cues.

Human action recognition (HAR) is a critical area in computer vision with wide-ranging applications, including video surveillance, healthcare monitoring, and abnormal behavior detection. Current HAR methods predominantly rely on full-body data, which can limit their effectiveness in real-world scenarios where occlusion is common. In such situations, the face often remains visible, providing valuable cues for action recognition. This paper introduces Face in Action (FIA), a novel two-stream method that leverages facial action cues for robust action recognition under conditions of significant occlusion. FIA consists of an RGB stream and a landmark stream. The RGB stream processes facial image sequences using a fine-spatio-multitemporal (FSM) 3D convolution module, which employs smaller spatial receptive fields to capture detailed local facial movements and larger temporal receptive fields to model broader temporal dynamics. The landmark stream processes facial landmark sequences using a normalized temporal attention (NTA) module within an NTA-GCN block, enhancing the detection of key facial frames and improving overall recognition accuracy. We validate the effectiveness of FIA using the NTU RGB+D and NTU RGB+D 120 datasets, focusing on action categories related to medical conditions. Our experiments demonstrate that FIA significantly outperforms existing methods in scenarios with extensive occlusion, highlighting its potential for practical applications in surveillance and healthcare settings.

The Effect of Directional Tactile Memory of the Back of the User on Reaction Time and Accuracy

Tactile memory is the cognitive process of storing and recalling information that has been perceived through the sense of touch. Directional tactile memory involves the encoding and retrieval of sensory data associated with a tactile experience, allowing individuals to remember and recognize directional information encoded through the sense of touch. A new method for providing directional tactile feedback, at the back of the user, has been developed to investigate the efficacy of directional tactile memory, its decay over time, and its impact during a concurrent cognitive task. Two experiments were presented. In the first experiment, tactile memory deterioration, with a visual or a tactile cue, was tested with different action-cue latencies (10 s and 20 s). In the second experiment, we considered tactile memory deterioration when there was an increased cognitive load as the participants played Tetris. Forty volunteers participated in the two experiments using purpose-built tactile seats with nine motors controlled by an Arduino. The performance data (error and reaction times) were analyzed statistically, and a NASA task load index (NASA-TLX) questionnaire was administered to measure the subjective workload after each of the two experiments. The findings highlighted that the directional tactile memory of the back can guide individuals to the correct point on the screen and that it can be maintained for at least 20 s. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of errors or reaction time with a visual or tactile action cue. However, being involved in a concurrent cognitive task (playing Tetris) adversely affected the reaction time, the number of errors, and the directional tactile memory, which degraded as the time between the directional cue and the action cue increased. Participants perceived the performance while playing Tetris as significantly more mentally and perceptually demanding, requiring more mental and physical effort and being more frustrating. These trials revealed a new potential for a human–machine interface system, leveraging directional tactile memory, which might be utilized to increase the safety of autonomous vehicles.

Factors associated with pregnant women’s willingness to receive maternal pertussis vaccination in Guizhou Province, China: An exploratory cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT The rise in pertussis incidence among infants in Guizhou, China underscores the need for maternal acellular pertussis vaccine (aP) immunization, a key strategy in protecting infants from severe health consequences. However, the willingness of pregnant women in Guizhou to receive this vaccine is not well-understood. This study aimed to explore pregnant women’s intentions toward maternal pertussis vaccination in Guizhou and identify the associated factors. A questionnaire based on the health belief model, was administered in an exploratory cross-sectional study from January to February 2022. Data from 564 participants were collected and analyzed. The chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Poisson regression were used to identify potential factors associated with vaccination intentions. Participants’ median age was 27 y (interquartile range (IQR): 24–31), and the median number of children per participant was one. The study found that only 36.0% of the participants intended to receive the aP vaccine while 64.0% were uncertain or negative in this regard. Significant factors associated with intentions to vaccinate included perceived barriers and cues for action and perceived benefits. The major barriers for low vaccination intentions were safety concerns for both the fetus and the mother, and family members’ negative attitudes. Free vaccines, perceiving preventive benefits, observing other pregnant women getting vaccinated, and healthcare provider recommendations may facilitate vaccination intentions. Multiple immune strategies should be developed or optimized to cope with the resurgence of pertussis.

IJCM_208A: Challenges in the uptake of testing for Tuberculosis Infection among household contacts of Index Tuberculosis patients: An operational analysis

Background: Gaps in Tuberculosis Preventive Treatment (TPT) cascade among household contacts (HHCs) of Tuberculosis patients are often attributed to the knowledge gaps among the HHCs. Objectives: To examine the factors affecting the uptake of IGRA testing among HHCs of drug-susceptible, pulmonary TB patients registered between January and May 2023 in Kolar district, Karnataka using Health Belief model and qualitative interviews. Methodology: Between April and June 2023, 196 HHCs of 70 registered TB patients were included in the mixed methods study. Using a four-point Likert scale questionnaire, adult HHCs were interviewed regarding their knowledge of TB disease, perceived susceptibility and severity of TB Infection, benefits, and barriers in testing for TB Infection (IGRA) and cues for action. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the scores of those who were tested and those who were not. Further, reasons for not undergoing IGRA testing were also assessed qualitatively. Results: Among 196 HHC, 45 were children under 5 years. IGRA testing had been done in 47% (71/151) of eligible HHCs. Among adult HHC, self- perceived and Index case-attributed susceptibility score was significantly associated with testing; while perceived severity scores, knowledge and perceived benefit scores were not. Major themes in barriers to testing were misinterpretation of ‘TB Infection’, selective testing of HHCs, delayed contact tracing, lack of logistics and lack of planning and coordination. TPT was given to 84% (38/45) under five HHCs. Major cue for TPT provision was availability of TPT, followed by caregiver’s perceived susceptibility. Conclusion: Perceived susceptibility of HHC to TB infection is often misinformed. Group counselling of HHCs, provision of IGRA at doorstep and a well-established referral system will improve the uptake of IGRA.

Words and arbitrary actions in early object categorization: weak evidence for a word advantage.

Both words and gestures have been shown to influence object categorization, often even overriding perceptual similarities to cue category membership. However, gestures are often meaningful to infants while words are arbitrarily related to an object they refer to, more similar to arbitrary actions that can be performed on objects. In this study, we examine how words and arbitrary actions shape category formation. Across three conditions (word cue, action cue, word-action cue), we presented infants (N = 90) with eight videos of single-category objects which vary in colour and other perceptual features. The objects were either accompanied by a word and/or an action that is being performed on the object. Infants in the word and action condition showed a decrease in looking over the course of the familiarization phase indicating habituation to the category, but infants in the word-action condition did not. At test, infants saw a novel object of the just-learned category and a novel object from another category side-by-side on the screen. There was some evidence for an advantage for words in shaping early object categorization, although we note that this was not robust across analyses.

Testing health belief model on food safety behaviour in Jordanian restaurants: The moderating effect of willingness to comply

The current study was primarily intended to assess the Health Belief Model on Food Safety Behaviour with the moderating role of willingness to comply in the context of Jordanian restaurants. HBM comprises numerous factors including perceived benefits (PBN), perceived susceptibility (PSU), perceived severity (PSV), cues to action (CA), perceived barriers (PBR), and self–efficacy (SE). A quantitative research design was adopted, and data collection was done via Google Forms from the Amman Chamber of Industry and Jordanian Restaurant Association (JRA). A purposive sampling approach was used, and the target population were the restaurants from Amman, Jordan. Initially, total 500 questionnaires have been distributed of which 302 responses were received as well as after eliminating missing or improper responses, only 296 were processed for the final analysis. Data analysis was done via Smart-PLS. The outcomes enlightened a positive interlinkage between perceived benefits, perceived barriers, perceived susceptibility, cues to action, and self–efficacy with food safety behaviour. However, PSV and FSB didn’t show any relation. The moderating analysis of WC revealed the absence of any moderating impact on perceived susceptibility, benefits, and perceived severity on food safety behaviour. Likewise, the demographic details of the participants were utilized as control variables and did not yield any impact on the food safety behaviour. To sum up, the study concludes that public health professionals and legal representatives, including lawmakers, ought to educate food handlers regarding the significance of food safety behaviours due to widespread misconceptions about how current food safety standards promote positive results. Consequently, Jordanian restaurants should strictly adhere to safety-related regulatory protocols to meet the growing demands of consumers. The findings of the current work also offer valuable theoretical as well as practical implications for the practitioners in the field.

Human-Centric Transformer for Domain Adaptive Action Recognition.

We study the domain adaptation task for action recognition, namely domain adaptive action recognition, which aims to effectively transfer action recognition power from a label-sufficient source domain to a label-free target domain. Since actions are performed by humans, it is crucial to exploit human cues in videos when recognizing actions across domains. However, existing methods are prone to losing human cues but prefer to exploit the correlation between non-human contexts and associated actions for recognition, and the contexts of interest agnostic to actions would reduce recognition performance in the target domain. To overcome this problem, we focus on uncovering human-centric action cues for domain adaptive action recognition, and our conception is to investigate two aspects of human-centric action cues, namely human cues and human-context interaction cues. Accordingly, our proposed Human-Centric Transformer (HCTransformer) develops a decoupled human-centric learning paradigm to explicitly concentrate on human-centric action cues in domain-variant video feature learning. Our HCTransformer first conducts human-aware temporal modeling by a human encoder, aiming to avoid a loss of human cues during domain-invariant video feature learning. Then, by a Transformer-like architecture, HCTransformer exploits domain-invariant and action-correlated contexts by a context encoder, and further models domain-invariant interaction between humans and action-correlated contexts. We conduct extensive experiments on three benchmarks, namely UCF-HMDB, Kinetics-NecDrone and EPIC-Kitchens-UDA, and the state-of-the-art performance demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed HCTransformer.

Assessment of Oral Health Beliefs & Oral Hygiene Practices Among Tribal Gypsies in Tamil Nadu

Introduction: Oral health beliefs and practices have changed over the years for humans. Despite adequate advancements in global oral health, problems persist in many communities worldwide, particularly among the underprivileged. The tribal gypsies are one among the underprivileged group without any knowledge of oral health & hygiene. The present study explores oral health beliefs and behavior among the tribal gypsies of Tamil Nadu. Aim & objectives: The objective of the present study was to assess the oral health beliefs and behavior among the tribal gypsies of Tamil Nadu. Materials and methods: The list of tribal gypsy colonies was obtained from the " Department of tribal welfare," and tribal gypsy colonies of certain areas in Tamil Nadu were identified for the study. A total of 458 subjects were selected. Informed consent was obtained from each participant, and ethical approval was obtained from the Research and Ethical Committee / IRB. The survey instrument, a questionnaire, was designed and reviewed many times to produce a questionnaire that would be friendly and easy to follow. Results: The perceived severity and perceived benefits are high, and the perceived barriers and perceived importance are low, which increases the cues for action and increased participation. Conclusion: The study results suggest that the tribal gypsies might have favorable compliance for oral health promotional programs. Further research is needed to investigate the oral health of the various ethnic tribes of Tamil Nadu.

Event-Related Brain Potentials N140 and P300 during Somatosensory Go/NoGo Tasks Are Modulated by Movement Preparation.

The Go/NoGo task requires attention and sensory processing to distinguish a motor action cue or 'Go stimulus' from a 'NoGo stimulus' requiring no action, as well as motor preparation for a rapid Go stimulus response. The neural activity mediating these response phases can be examined non-invasively by measuring specific event-related brain potentials (ERPs) using electroencephalography. However, it is critical to determine how different task conditions, such as the relationship between attention site and movement site, influence ERPs and task performance. In this study, we compared attention-associated ERP components N140 and P300, the performance metrics reaction time (RT) and accuracy (%Error) and movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs) between Go/NoGo task trials in which attention target and movement site were the same (right index finger movement in response to right index finger stimulation) or different (right index finger movement in response to fifth finger stimulation). In other Count trials, participants kept a running count of target stimuli presented but did not initiate a motor response. The N140 amplitudes at electrode site Cz were significantly larger in Movement trials than in Count trials regardless of the stimulation site-movement site condition. In contrast, the P300 amplitude at Cz was significantly smaller in Movement trials than in Count trials. The temporal windows of N140 and P300 overlapped with the MRCP. This superposition may influence N140 and P300 through summation, possibly independent of changes in attentional allocation.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND DEMENTIA PREVENTION: THE ROLE OF HEALTH COGNITIONS AMONG 50+ HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS IN ISRAEL

Abstract Background Although dementia cannot be cured, it can be prevented by adopting various health behaviors, including regular physical activity. The current study sought to i) estimate the participation of Israel-born healthy individuals aged 50 years or older in regular physical activity; ii) assess the associations linking Health Belief Model variables (Rosenstock, 1966, 1974) and engagement in regular physical activity. Method This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2021-2022, using online convenience sampling. The study included 328 Israel-born participants aged 50 years or older. Physical activity was assessed by asking whether participants regularly engaged in physical activity (type of activities/times per week/minutes). Cognitive perceptions were assessed using the Motivation to Change Lifestyle and Health Behaviors for Dementia Risk Reduction questionnaire (Kim et al., 2014). Results The average weekly minutes of physical activity was 165.62 (S.D. 176.17), whereas only 43.6% performed 150 minutes of physical activity weekly. A multivariate linear regression indicated that among all of the model’s variables, perceived severity (β=-.204, p<.001), cues to action (β=.134, p<.001), feminine gender (β=-.155, p<.01), and low income (β=-.113,p<.05) emerged as significant predictors of weekly minutes of physical activity. The model explained 14.2% of the variance in the performance of weekly minutes of physical activity [F(7,320)=12.22, p<.001]. Conclusions The current research underlines the role of health cognitions (perceived severity, barriers, and cues for action) regarding engagement in physical activity. The results of the current study might serve as a basis for intervention programs among various target populations.

Exploring the neural basis and modulating factors of implicit altercentric spatial perspective-taking with fNIRS

Humans spontaneously take the perspective of others when encoding spatial information in a scene, especially with agentive action cues present. This functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study explored how action observation influences implicit spatial perspective-taking (SPT) by adapting a left–right spatial judgment task to investigate whether transformation strategies underlying altercentric SPT can be predicted on the basis of cortical activation. Strategies associated with two opposing neurocognitive accounts (embodied versus disembodied) and their proposed neural correlates (human mirror neuron system; hMNS versus cognitive control network; CCN) are hypothesized. Exploratory analyses with 117 subjects uncover an interplay between perspective-taking and post-hoc factor, consistency of selection, in regions alluding to involvement of the CCN. Descriptively, inconsistent altercentric SPT elicited greater activation than consistent altercentric SPT and/or inconsistent egocentric SPT in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left motor cortex (MC), but not the inferior parietal lobules (IPL). Despite the presence of grasping cues, spontaneous embodied strategies were not evident during implicit altercentric SPT. Instead, neural trends in the inconsistent subgroups (22 subjects; 13 altercentric; 9 egocentric) suggest that inconsistency in selection modulates the decision-making process and plausibly taps on deliberate and effortful disembodied strategies driven by the CCN. Implications for future research are discussed.

Toward Unified and Quantitative Cinematic Shot Attribute Analysis

Cinematic Shot Attribute Analysis aims to analyze the intrinsic attributes of movie shots, such as movement and scale. In previous methods, specialized architectures were designed for each specific task and relied on the use of optical flow maps. In this paper, we consider shot attribute analysis as a unified task of motion–static weight allocation, and propose a motion–static dual-path architecture for recognizing various shot attributes. In this architecture, we design a new action cue generation module for adapting the end-to-end training process instead of a pre-trained optical flow network; and, to address the issue of limited samples in movie shot datasets, we design a fixed-size adjustment strategy to enable the network to directly utilize pre-trained vision transformer models while adapting to shot data inputs at arbitrary sample rates. In addition, we quantitatively analyze the sensitivity of different shot attributes to motion and static features for the first time. Subsequent experimental results on two datasets, MovieShots and AVE, demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms all previous approaches without increasing computational cost.

Action planning and execution cues influence economic partner choice

Prudently choosing who to interact with and who to avoid is an important ability to ensure that we benefit from a cooperative interaction. While the role of others' preferences, attributes, and values in partner choice have been established (Rossetti, Hilbe & Hauser, 2022), much less is known about whether the manner in which a potential partner plans and implements a decision provides helpful cues for partner choice. We used a partner choice paradigm in which participants chose who to interact with in the Prisoners’ Dilemma. Before choosing a cooperation partner, participants were presented with information about the potential partners’ decision-related actions in another round of the Prisoners’ Dilemma. They received either information about the potential partners’ planning during decision making (i.e., decision-time; Experiment 1) or action execution during decision implementation (i.e., movement directness; Experiment 2). Across both games, participants preferred to interact with those who planned actions quickly or executed actions with direct and smooth movements, indicating that they were cooperating confidently and without deliberation. This demonstrates that action cues present in either the planning or implementation of economic decisions influence partner choice. We discuss implications of this finding for human decision-making and perception-action coupling in action understanding.

Understanding the behavioral determinants that predict barriers and enablers of screening and treatment behaviors for diabetic retinopathy among Bangladeshi women: findings from a barrier analysis

Background and aimWhile early detection and timely treatments can prevent diabetic retinopathy (DR) related blindness, barriers to receiving these DR services may cause permanent sight loss. Despite having similar prevalence to diabetes and DR, women are less likely than men to perform these behaviors due to multi-faced barriers in screening and receiving follow-up treatments for DR. This study, therefore, aimed at identifying the barriers to – and enablers of – screening and follow-up treatments behaviors for DR among women aged more than 40 years with diabetes from the behavioral perspectives in Bangladesh.MethodsThis Barrier Analysis study interviewed 360 women (180 “Doers” and 180 “Non-doers”) to explore twelve behavioral determinants of four DR behaviors including screening, injection of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF medication), laser therapy and vitro-retinal surgery. The data analysis was performed to calculate estimated relative risk to identify the degree of association between the determinants and behaviors, and to find statistically significant differences (at p < 0.05) in the responses between the Doers and Non-doers.ResultsAccess to healthcare facilities was the major barrier impeding women from performing DR behaviors. Difficulty in locating DR service centers, the need to travel long distances, the inability to travel alone and during illness, challenges of paying for transportation and managing workload significantly affected women’s ability to perform the behaviors. Other determinants included women’s perceived self-efficacy, perceived negative consequences (e.g. fear and discomfort associated with injections or laser treatment), and cues for action. Significant perceived enablers included low cost of DR treatments, supportive attitudes by healthcare providers, government policy, and perceived social norms.ConclusionThe study found a host of determinants related to the barriers to and enablers of DR screening and treatment behaviors. These determinants included perceived self-efficacy (and agency), positive and negative consequences, perceived access, perceived social norms, culture, and perceived risk. Further investments are required to enhance the availability of DR services within primary and secondary health institutions along with health behavior promotion to dispel misconceptions and fears related to DR treatments.

Older adults' acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine: Application of the health belief model.

To determine the prevalence of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance among older adults and the factors that independently predict vaccine acceptance using the Health Belief Model (HBM). This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study. Consenting older adults aged 60 years and older (n = 384) from Primary Health Care Centers in rural and urban areas of Mansoura District, Egypt, who could interact adequately with researchers participated in the study. The data were collected through an electronic questionnaire that included socio-demographic data, health-related characteristics, and health beliefs based on the HBM framework. Overall, 46.9% were willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, 19.5% declined, and 33.6% were undecided. Higher perceptions of COVID-19 severity, vaccine benefits, and action cues were associated with vaccine acceptance (p = 0.05). Vaccination campaigns that highlight the benefits of immunization should be prioritized by policymakers. In addition, vaccinated peoples should use social media to spread awareness about the advantages and challenges of vaccination. Nurse leaders should apply the HBM to forecast health-related behaviors, especially vaccination attitudes.

Generic drugs prescription behavior: A pilot study on Tunisian doctors

ABSTRACT Generic drugs seem a promising alternative to decrease healthcare costs. However, on one hand, doctors express reluctance toward this kind of drug, and on the other hand, existing literature remains silent about factors explaining their prescribing behavior. The current study mobilizes the Health Belief Model to offer a better understanding of the factors that hinder the prescription of generic drugs by doctors in terms of benefits, barriers, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, self-efficacy, and action cues. Twenty-four in-depth interviews were conducted with doctors from different specialties. Projective techniques were used including Chinese portrait, completion test, completion task, and association tests. Data analysis was processed using Sphinx software. The paper offers practical recommendations for health authorities and pharmaceutical firms to better promote generics. Increasing the prescription of generic drugs, compared to branded drugs, may increase patient access to affordable drug treatments, decrease healthcare costs and establish rational utilization of medicines. Generic drugs prescription may consequently play an essential role in improving the quality of life.

Health Belief Model Keteraturan Pemeriksaan Antenatal Ibu Hamil Selama Pandemi Covid-19

During the Covid-19 pandemic, maternal and neonatal death still becomes a challenging issue in Indonesia, especially since there was a social restriction on maternal and newborn health services. Pregnant women are advised to perform a pregnancy check-up during the pandemic, but most are reluctant due to afraid of being infected with the virus. The health belief model is used to analyze the assessment of individual health actions. The study aimed to determine the relation of the health belief model in antenatal examinations during the covid-19 pandemic. This research was a quantitative study with a cross-sectional approach. The population was whole pregnant women in the Dukuhwaru Health Center as many as 208 people. About 53 people sample recruited using accidental sampling techniques. Independent variables include perceptions of vulnerability, perceptions of seriousness, perception of threats, perception of benefits, perception of obstacles, and cues to action, while the dependent variables are the regularity of pregnant women in conducting antenatal care examinations. Data was collected through questionnaires and analyzed using Fisher's Exact test. The results showed that there was a relationship between the perception of seriousness (p=0.03), perception of threat (p=0.000), and perception of obstacles (p=0.04) with the regularity of antenatal checks. However, there was no significant correlation between perception of susceptibility (p=0.46), perception of benefit (p=0.07), and cues for action (p=1) to the regularity of antenatal checks. 3 out of 6 of the health belief model factors were related to the regularity of antenatal checks. The regularity of antenatal visits on the incidence of Covid-19 needs to be explored in subsequent studies.

Awareness, Motivation, and Intentions in Preventing Stunting in the Dry Land Area of Kupang Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province

This study aims to determine mothers' level of awareness, motivation, and intentions in preventing stunting in dry areas that tend to be food insecure. The type of research used was qualitative, using a phenomenological approach through interviews, forum group discussions, and observations. The informants involved were 20 mothers with babies 0-23 months and 3 health workers responsible for the Kupang Regency stunting program. The mother's awareness regarding stunting prevention efforts could be seen from the mother's knowledge, action cues, and risk perception. In-depth interviews were conducted with informants regarding the mother's motivation, reflected in the mother's attitude and self-confidence in carrying out stunting prevention efforts. The results of FGDs and in-depth interviews with mothers revealed that they knew nothing about stunting and had never even heard of the term. This was similar to what health workers stated; people generally did not know the term stunting. Actions to prevent stunting in the form of breastfeeding revealed that they act to provide breast milk to children which is part of efforts to prevent stunting due to encouragement from health workers and also families. The mother's intention to make efforts to prevent stunting properly is by doing a number of things, including providing nutritious food, routinely checking children at the Puskesmas and taking good care of them. The conclusion is mother's awareness regarding stunting prevention efforts, judging from the variety of mothers' knowledge, some have never heard of the term stunting, some know the term stunting but don't know what it means. Their cues to act were obtained from health workers and their families. Perceptions of risks related to stunting in children, mothers consider it not a problem.

Determinants for receiving the seasonal influenza vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Arab Emirates

Influenza is considered a major health problem in the whole world today. Vaccination is an effective way to prevent infection and decrease mortality of lots of infectious diseases like influenza. The current COVID 19 pandemic has imposed a risk of coinfection by both SARS-CoV-2 and influenza virus. The concern is that a more severe influenza season will overwhelm already strained health systems. This study aims at exploring the attitudes and beliefs related to vaccine uptake, and to identify the underlying barriers to the intention to get vaccinated. This is a cross sectional study. An anonymous electronic questionnaire was distributed. The questionnaire includes questions based on the context of the Health Belief Model. Chi-square test and regression analysis were applied to test the association between variables and the intention to vaccinate. A total of 7574 participants were included in the study. Females represented 57% of the respondents. Those who were 35-44 years, male, Emirati national, retired, married, graduates and with a previous history of taking the influenza vaccine were significantly associated with higher intentions to vaccinate. The perceived benefits, susceptibility and severity of the disease were motivators for taking the vaccine. Psychological and physical barriers were significantly affecting the intention to vaccinate. Protecting the family and community and recommendations by health care providers were the most important cues for action. Physical and psychological barriers to influenza vaccine uptake need to be addressed and tackled. The current study calls for attention to the importance of the role of health care providers’ recommendations for getting vaccinated.

Vaccine Hesitancy and Factors Related to Vaccine Hesitancy in COVID-19 Vaccination among a Tribal Community of Meghalaya: A Mixed Methods Study.

Vaccine hesitancy should be dealt as an important issue as it carries both individual- and community-level risks; however, it lacks proper assessment in particular among the indigenous tribal population. A community-based sequential explanatory mixed methods study was conducted among 238 eligible individuals in Ri-Bhoi district, Meghalaya. The quantitative part involved a cross-sectional study to determine the proportion of vaccine hesitancy and the qualitative part comprised in-depth interviews among the eligible residents and key informant interviews among the health workers providing the vaccination services, to explore the facilitators and barriers of vaccine uptake. A total of 113 [47.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 41.0%-54.0%)] participants were found to be hesitant to vaccination, among which 16.8% (95% CI: 12.4%-22.3%) were initially hesitant and 30.7% (95% CI: 24.9%-37.0%) had vaccine refusal. The themes generated through qualitative interviews were individual-related, disease-related, vaccine-related, healthcare system and provider related and socio-cultural and religious. The main barriers for the likelihood of action were perceived susceptibility and perceived severity under the individual perception along with ambiguity aversion, scepticism about the efficacy, mistrust, concerns on side effects, rumors, and socio-cultural and religious misbeliefs. Vaccine hesitancy is found to be considerably higher and it depends on complacency toward the vaccine, confidence in its safety, perceived susceptibility to the disease and perceived severity to the disease coupled with modifying factors for cues for action. Healthcare workers should better communicate to improve the uptake of vaccines by reducing the barriers to the vaccine acceptance.