Correlates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Austria: trust and the government

Abstract

Background: With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surging and new mutations evolving, trust in vaccines is essential.

Methods: We explored correlates of vaccine hesitancy, considering political believes and psychosocial concepts, conducting a non-probability quota-sampled online survey with 1007 Austrians.

Results: We identified several important correlates of vaccine hesitancy, ranging from demographics to complex factors such as voting behavior or trust in the government. Among those with hesitancy towards a COVID-19 vaccine, having voted for opposition parties (opp) or not voted (novote) were (95% Confidence Intervall (CI)opp, 1.44-2.95) to 2.25-times (95%CInovote, 1.53-3.30) that of having voted for governing parties. Only 46.2% trusted the Austrian government to provide safe vaccines, and 80.7% requested independent scientific evaluations regarding vaccine safety to increase willingness to vaccine.

Conclusions: Contrary to expected, psychosocial dimensions were only weakly correlated with vaccine hesitancy. However, the strong correlation between distrust in the vaccine and distrust in authorities suggests a common cause of disengagement from public discourse.

Keywords: COVID-19; behaviour; communicable diseases; vaccine hesitancy.