Compliant citizens, defiant rebels or neither? Exploring changing COVID-19 vaccine attitudes and decisions in Bradford, UK: Findings from a follow-up qualitative study

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 vaccines have been the central pillar of the public health response to the pandemic, intended to enable us to "live with Covid". It is important to understand COVID-19 vaccines attitudes and decisions in order to maximise uptake through an empathetic lens. Objective: To explore the factors that influenced people's COVID-19 vaccines decisions and how attitudes towards the vaccines had changed in an eventful year. Design and participants: This is a follow up study that took place in Bradford, UK one year after the original study, between October 2021 and January 2022. In-depth phone interviews were conducted with 12 (of the 20 originally interviewed) people from different ethnic groups and areas of Bradford. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted. Results: 11 of the 12 participants interviewed had received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and most intended to have a booster dose. Participants described a variety of reasons why they had decided to have the vaccines, including: feeling at increased risk at work; protecting family and others in their communities, unrestricted travel and being influenced by the vaccine decisions of family, friends and colleagues. All participants discussed ongoing interaction with COVID-19 misinformation and for some this meant they were uneasy about their decision to have the vaccine. They described feeling overloaded by and disengaged from COVID-19 information, which they often found contradictory and some felt mistrustful of the UK government's motives and decisions during the pandemic. Conclusions: The majority of participants had managed to navigate an overwhelming amount of circulating COVID-19 misinformation and chosen to have two or more COVID-19 vaccines, even if they had been previously said they were unsure. However, these decisions were complicated, and demonstrate the continuum of vaccine hesitancy and acceptance. This follow up study underlines that vaccine attitudes are changeable and contextual. Patient or Public Contribution: The original study was developed through a rapid community and stakeholder engagement process in 2020. Discussion with the Bradford Council Public Health team and the public through the Bradford COVID-19 Community Insights Group was undertaken in 2021 to identify important priorities for this follow up study.

Predicting future spatial patterns in COVID-19 booster vaccine uptake

“…The random forest model was fit using the RandomForest package (version 4. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] in R (version 4.1.0). Model script is available at https://git.ecdf.ed.ac.uk/awood310/ covid-19-vaccination-analysis-and-projection.…”

“…For example, surveys on hesitancy have thus far highlighted reasons for accepting a first dose that are specific to the context of the pandemic at the time of the initial rollout. These include, for example, a desire for life to get “back to normal”, a feeling of moral duty, and a worry of a potential requirement of vaccination for travel [4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Few or no legally binding government restrictions have been in place in Scotland since August 2021, and with this different context it is uncertain how uptake will settle in the longer term.…”