The Relationship Between Religious Faith and Trust in Science in the Context of Mandatory Vaccination Against COVID-19: Experience of Kazakhstan

Abstract

This article investigates the covariation of belief and science credibility in Kazakhstan in the context of COVID-19 and vaccination. The research methodology is based on a multi-country analysis of COVID-19 indicators from a global database of COVID-19 vaccinations, and the covariance of belief and science credibility was estimated in the case of Kazakhstan. According to the survey, 33.5% of respondents changed their opinions in favor of vaccination and 29.6% of those surveyed affirmed their commitment to vaccination. Furthermore, 58.8% of respondents believe that this is the only and an effective way to protect themselves from COVID-19. Some of the main reasons for refusing to get a vaccine include contraindications (14.1%), fear of possible severe consequences (4.5%), and lack of confidence in vaccines and medicine in general (4.5%). Less than 1 percent of all respondents cited religious beliefs as the main reason for unwillingness to get vaccinated.

Keywords:

• Beliefs
• COVID-19 pandemic
• health care system
• lack of trust in health professionals
• survey

Authors’ contributions

Conceptualization, E.O.; methodology, A.S.; software, K.S.; validation, A.S., E.O., O.A., and K.S.; formal analysis, O.A.; investigation, E.O.; resources, A.S. and K.S.; data curation, O.A.; writing–original draft preparation, A.S. and O.A.; writing–review and editing, E.O.; visualization, O.A. and K.S.; supervision, A.S.; project administration, E.O.; funding acquisition, K.S.

Disclosure statement

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

Availability of data and material

Data will be available from the corresponding author upon request.