COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and acceptance: a comprehensive scoping review of global literature

Abstract

As countries continue the third year of the pandemic, we believe that there has been unfair attention to COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and safety, while tacitly ignoring serious challenges with vaccine uptake, without which vaccination may not be effective against the spread of COVID-19. While several studies have been published on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, there remains a need to conduct a comprehensive global analysis of vaccine hesitancy. We conducted a scoping review of 60 studies published globally on vaccine hesitancy and acceptance. We conducted a qualitative analysis to identify motivators and barriers to vaccination across several cultural and demographic contexts. We found the following factors to be relevant in any discussion about addressing or minimizing vaccine hesitancy: risk perceptions, trust in health care systems, solidarity, previous experiences with vaccines, misinformation, concerns about vaccine side effects and political ideology. We combine our insights from this comprehensive review of global literature to offer an important and practical discussion about two strategies that have been used to improve vaccine uptake: (i) communication and education and (ii) vaccine rollout and logistics.

Previous Vaccination History and Psychological Factors as Significant Predictors of Willingness to Receive Mpox Vaccination and a Favorable Attitude towards Compulsory Vaccination

“…Additionally, past vaccination behavior—as indicated by the history of vaccine uptake for different types of vaccines—can influence the prospects of receiving vaccination in the future [ 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 ]. The higher likelihood of vaccine acceptance among individuals with previous vaccination history may be attributed to their positive experience in terms of benefits gained from vaccination, coupled with the minimal associated risks [ 78 ].…”

“…The concept of previous vaccination behavior as an important determinant of vaccine acceptance has been previously illustrated [ 76 , 77 ]. Despite the limitations of our approach in assessing past vaccination behavior which relied solely on two vaccines (COVID-19 and influenza), the significant differences observed among the three Mpox vaccine attitude groups indicate the relevance of past vaccination history as a determinant of the intention to get vaccinated.…”

Mechanisms Driving Online Vaccine Debate During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…However, the existing literature also evidenced that vaccine hesitancy can also be a contextual phenomenon where people’s vaccination attitudes can be determined by the availability of information, perceived risks of the vaccines, social norms (Mønsted & Lehmann, 2022), political views (Fournet et al, 2018), cognitive evaluations (Fridman et al, 2021), and trust in government institutions (Dal & Tokdemir, 2022). According to a comprehensive review of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy from 60 published studies from around the world by Majid et al (2022), several factors play a pivotal role in shaping COVID-19 hesitancy, including risk perceptions, trust in health care systems, solidarity, previous experiences with vaccines, misinformation, concerns about vaccine side effects, and political ideology. According to Dal and Tokdemir (2022), this trend is also held in the case of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Türkiye.…”

Experiences, Enablers, and Challenges in Service Delivery and Integration of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Rapid Systematic Review

“…As vaccine supply eventually increased in LMICs, additional challenges such as lack of operational budget to deliver the vaccines, low vaccine confidence due to myths, misconceptions and misinformation, and low-risk perception became dominant drivers of low vaccination rates [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Moreover, the shortage of healthcare workers due to high turnover rates exacerbated the challenges of the already strained healthcare infrastructure to deliver the incoming vaccines [ 10 ].…”