The intent of students to vaccinate is influenced by cultural factors, peer network, and knowledge about vaccines

ABSTRACT

Young adults are the future vaccine decision-makers as parents or health-care professionals. To understand their attitudes and behaviors toward vaccination, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 2079 students attending the University of Antwerp, Belgium and the University of Pisa, Italy. Principal component analysis was used to investigate associations between survey responses and the intent to vaccinate. Vaccination knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors among university students in Italy and Belgium were high. However, only one-half of respondents displayed an intent to vaccinate. High levels of knowledge, positive attitudes, and confidence in vaccines were positively associated with age, higher level of study, being a medical student, a recent vaccination experience, and not knowing trusted persons who did not believe in vaccines. Country of origin was highly correlated with the survey responses and was clustered with lifestyle, family, and data source variables, suggesting a strong modifying effect of culture and family attitudes on how vaccines are perceived in this age-group. Recent meningococcal vaccination campaigns and public discussions around mandatory vaccination in Italy may have influenced these results. We show that the intent to vaccinate was correlated with two main clusters of variables linked to culture (country, family, lifestyle), and to scholarship (knowledge, attitudes, data source) that together influence the behavior of students with respect to vaccination. Our study reinforces previous findings that knowledge about vaccines is key to shaping attitudes and behaviors, but also shows that cultural and lifestyle factors are another platform that could be leveraged in promoting vaccination among young people.

KEYWORDS:

• Vaccination
• vaccine
• student
• survey
• qualitative research
• vaccine hesitancy

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Pier-Luigi Lopalco for his contribution to the study. The authors would like to thank Business & Decision Life Sciences platform for editorial assistance and manuscript coordination, on behalf of GSK. Carole Desiron coordinated manuscript development and editorial support. Joanne Wolter (independent on behalf of GSK) provided medical writing support.

Author contributions

All authors had full access to all the data in the study and took responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. All authors participated in the development of this manuscript, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

IV, AP, and AC are employed by GSK group of companies and do not have any non-financial relationships and activities to declare. IV also hold shares in the GSK group of companies.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2021.1938492.

Additional information

Funding

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA funded this study and was involved in all stages of study conduct, including analysis of the data. GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA also covered all costs associated with the development and publication of this manuscript.