Personal risk or societal benefit? Investigating adults' support for COVID-19 childhood vaccination

Chiara Chiavenna; Laura P Leone; Alessia Melegaro; Tiziano Rotesi; Scott E Bokemper; Elliott E Paintsil; Amyn A Malik; Gregory A Huber; Saad B Omer; Maria Cucciniello; Paolo Pin

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.05.017

Personal risk or societal benefit? Investigating adults' support for COVID-19 childhood vaccination

Vaccine. 2023 Jun 7;41(25):3683-3687. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.05.017. Epub 2023 May 9.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Bocconi University, Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Milan, Italy; Bocconi University, Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics (BIDSA), Milan, Italy.
² Bocconi University, Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Milan, Italy.
³ Bocconi University, Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Milan, Italy; Bocconi University, Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics (BIDSA), Milan, Italy; Bocconi University, Social and Political Science Department, Milan, Italy. Electronic address: alessia.melegaro@unibocconi.it.
⁴ University of Lausanne, Department of Economics, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁵ Yale University, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale University, Center for the Study of American Politics, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁶ Yale Institute for Global Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁷ Yale Institute for Global Health, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁸ Yale University, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale University, Center for the Study of American Politics, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale University, Department of Political Science, New Haven, CT, USA.
⁹ Yale Institute for Global Health, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA; Yale School of Nursing, Orange, CT, USA.
¹⁰ Bocconi University, Dondena Centre for Research on Social Dynamics and Public Policies, Milan, Italy; University of Edinburgh, Business School, Edinburgh, Scotland.
¹¹ Bocconi University, Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics (BIDSA), Milan, Italy; Università di Siena, Department of Economics and Statistics, Siena, Italy.

Abstract

Parental hesitancy poses a serious threat to the success of the COVID-19 childhood vaccination campaign. We investigate whether adults' opinions on childhood vaccination can be influenced via two survey experiments in Italy (n = 3,633 participants) and the UK (n = 3,314 participants). Respondents were randomly assigned to: a "risk treatment" that highlighted the potential risks of COVID-19 to a child, a "herd immunity treatment" that emphasized the community benefits of pediatric vaccination, or a control message. Participants' probability of supporting COVID-19 childhood vaccination was then assessed on a 0-100 scale. We find that the "risk treatment" reduced the proportion of Italian parents strongly against vaccination by up to 29.6 %, while increasing the proportion of neutral parents by up to 45.0 %. The "herd immunity treatment", instead, was only effective among non-parents, resulting in a lower proportion of individuals against pediatric vaccination and a higher proportion of individuals in favor (both shifted by around 20 %).

Keywords: COVID-19; Children; Health information; Parents; Vaccine hesitancy.

Publication types

Randomized Controlled Trial
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
COVID-19* / prevention & control
Child
Humans
Immunity, Herd
Immunization Programs
Italy / epidemiology
Vaccination

Grants and funding

UL1 TR001863/TR/NCATS NIH HHS/United States