COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada: Content Analysis of Tweets Using the Theoretical Domains Framework (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND With the approval of two COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, many people feel a sense of relief with hope on the horizon. However, only about 75% of Canadians plan to receive one of the vaccines. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this research is to determine the reasons Canadians feel hesitant towards taking a COVID-19 vaccine. METHODS We analyzed 3,915 Tweets from public Twitter profiles in Canada using the search words “vaccine” and “COVID.” Those Tweets that met the inclusion criteria (i.e., were about COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy) were coded using content analysis. Codes were then organized into themes then interpreted using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF). RESULTS Overall, 605 Tweets identified as exhibiting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy stems from the following six themes: concerns over safety; suspicion about political and/or economic forces driving the COVID-19 or the vaccine; lack of knowledge about the vaccine; anti-vaccine or confusing messaging from authority figures; lack of legal liability from the vaccine companies; and the historical legacy of mistrust toward the medical industry by minority communities. These themes were categorized into five TDF constructs: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, environment context and resources, and social influence. CONCLUSIONS With the World Health Organization stating that one of the worst threats to global health is vaccine hesitancy, it is important to have a fulsome understanding of the reasons behind this reluctance. Healthcare leaders and clinicians may use this knowledge to build public health interventions that are responsive to the concerns of citizens who are hesitant to get vaccinated. Using a behavioural theory, this research adds to the emerging knowledge about vaccine hesitancy in relation to COVID-19 using public discourse from Tweets in real-time. CLINICALTRIAL n/a

Role of Information Technology in COVID-19 Vaccination Drive: An Analysis of the COVID-19 Global Beliefs, Behaviors, and Norms Survey

“…COVID-19 virus has the potential to harm us as we are constantly exposed to the virus while visiting public places like restaurants, retail stores, businesses, places of worship, public parks and gardens, and places of work. Exposure to the virus can trigger our immune system to react to the virus as it has high negative outcomes toward our body, which has led to intense research and human clinical studies about effective COVID-19 vaccination [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

“…The primary goal of vaccination trials is to make sure that the subsequent SARS-nCoV-2 infection risk remains low and the vaccine is safe to administer. The vaccine trial shows that it is efficient in neutralizing the virus with the enhancement of the antibodies [25][26][27][28][29]. In the survey study, the respondents were shown how previous participants have answered survey questions in their country regarding behavioral perception about COVID-19 pandemic; vaccination drive; social distancing; preventive measures like wearing masks, hand washing, using sanitizers, etc.…”

“…In the survey study, the respondents were shown how previous participants have answered survey questions in their country regarding behavioral perception about COVID-19 pandemic; vaccination drive; social distancing; preventive measures like wearing masks, hand washing, using sanitizers, etc. [15,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The information to the respondents was provided in a randomized way during the survey which showed the descriptive norms of the respondents about acceptance of the vaccination.…”

Mild Adverse Events of Sputnik V Vaccine Extracted from Russian Language Telegram Posts via BERT Deep Learning Model

“…In the discourse on COVID-19 vaccines, the main issues were that they were developed quickly, and they could compromise safety. Those issues included the fear that vaccines would alter human DNA, cause allergic reactions to vaccine ingredients, result in sudden deaths due to frailty syndrome, or cause infertility [48,49]. Wide anti-COVID immunization programs promulgated a discourse in which risk (e.g., the discomfort of common, but mild AEs as well as rare, but serious AEs) and benefits (e.g., efficacy in protecting from the disease) were described as "tradeoffs" of being vaccinated.…”

Revealing public opinion towards COVID-19 vaccines with Twitter Data in the United States: a spatiotemporal perspective

“…Additionally, user locational information enables researchers to investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of the public's opinions and attitudes. In general, existing studies have investigated people's reactions towards COVID-19 vaccines, with a heavy focus on the US [10][11][12][13][14][15] and also extends to other countries in the world, including China [16], South Africa [17], Australia [18], United Kingdom [19][20], Canada [21,11], Africa [22] and to a global scale [23]. However, the study period of these works is relatively limited to or predominantly focused on the early stage of the pandemic or up to the end of 2020, without covering early 2021, the period of mass systemic vaccine implementation in many countries.…”