The prevalence and determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the age of infodemic

ABSTRACT

Background

Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Communication and media environments are potential drivers of vaccine hesitancy. It is worthwhile to examine the relationship between social media use and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Objective

This study aims to understand the prevalence and determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Methods

Questionnaires were administered to 463 participants in mainland China. Factor analysis, correlation analysis, and linear regression models were utilized to examine the prevalence and influencing factors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in China, as well as the relationship between social media use, media trust, health information literacy, and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Results

Lack of confidence and risk were identified as factors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Age, occupation status and income levels were significantly associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. In addition, we observed that frequency of social media use, diversity of social media use, media trust and health information literacy were significantly correlated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Conclusion

Increased frequency and diversity of social media use, media trust and health information literacy can mitigate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and promote COVID-19 vaccination.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• vaccine hesitancy
• social media use
• media trust
• health information literacy

Authors’ contributions and Authorship

Hui Ouyang (HO), Xiaohan Ma (XM) and Dr. Xiang Wu (XW) designed the study. HO organized the data, conducted the statistical analysis, and drafted the first version of the manuscript. XW and XM revised the manuscript. All authors attest they meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Ms. Aruhan Mu and Ms. Feiyang Zheng at School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, who gave valuable advices on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

This study is a survey study and is non-interventional, so ethical approval was not required. The study was conducted using the Credamo platform, and participants voluntarily completed the questionnaire on the platform. All participants were informed of the reason for conducting the study through the questionnaire instructions before the start of the survey, and were assured that the questionnaire was for research use only and strictly confidential. Therefore, all participants who participated in this questionnaire agreed to participate in this study.