Global analysis of timely COVID-19 vaccinations: improving governance to reinforce response policies for pandemic crises

Abstract

PurposeThe goal of this study is to analyze the relationship between public governance and COVID-19 vaccinations during early 2021 to assess the preparedness of countries to timely policy responses to cope with pandemic crises.Design/methodology/approachThis global study elaborates descriptive statistics, correlations, regression analyses and Independent Samples T-Test on 112 countries, comparing those with high/low level of governance, to determine whether statistical evidence supports the hypothesis that good governance can improve the timely administration of vaccines.FindingsBivariate correlation reveals that doses of vaccines administered × 100 inhabitants have a high positive association with the General Index of Governance (r = 0.58, p-value <0.01). The result is confirmed by partial correlation (controlling density of population per km2): r = 0.584, p-value <0.001. The coefficient of regression in the models also indicates that an increase in the General Index of Governance improves the expected administration of doses of COVID-19 vaccines (p-value <0.001).Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this study has provided interesting results that are, of course, tentative, it has several limitations. First, a limitation is the lack of data in several countries. Second, not all the possible confounding factors that affect the vaccination against COVID-19 are investigated, such as country-specific health investments and expenditures, and these aspects should be examined in the future development of this research. A third limit is related to the measurement of governance through the World Governance Indicators, which are based only on perceptions and can be biased by different socio-economic factors.Practical implicationsThe identification of factors determining the timely vaccinations may help to design best practices of health policy for improving the resilience of countries to face pandemic crises.Social implicationsThe improvement of preparedness of countries through good governance can foster a rapid rollout of vaccinations to cope with pandemic threats and the negative effects of their socio-economic impact.Originality/valueThis study presents a global analysis of the role of public governance for timely vaccinations to face pandemic crises in society.

Effects of strict containment policies on COVID-19 pandemic crisis: lessons to cope with next pandemic impacts

“…Chirumbolo et al ( 2022 ) argue that the scientific community should support institutions and policymakers to improve best practices of crisis management to face next pandemics. In fact, Benati and Coccia ( 2022 ) suggest the positive effects of a good governance in supporting the prompt implementation of health policy responses to cope with pandemic impact, which may mitigate fatality rates. Moreover, an exploratory research based on a small sample of countries shows in Fig.…”

Improving preparedness for next pandemics: Max level of COVID-19 vaccinations without social impositions to design effective health policy and avoid flawed democracies

“…In the presence of pandemic threats, such as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, vaccination campaign can be one of the fundamental strategies to cope with new viral agents and to reduce the burden on healthcare system and negative effects in society ( Akamatsu et al, 2021 ; Benati and Coccia, 2022 ; Coccia, 2021 , 2021a , 2022 , 2022a ). The rollout of vast vaccination campaigns also generates the main issue of hesitancy and resistance to vaccines in a share of people, which is a social aspect associated with individual freedoms in rich and democratic countries (cf., Coccia, 2022a , 2022b ; Verger and Peretti-Watel, 2021 ).…”

IJHG 27.3 Review

“…While White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the USA is no longer in the "pandemic phase" (Schreiber, 2022), there continue to be significant outbreaks of COVID-19 in the USA and around the world as the virus mutates and the public becomes less vigilant. Benati and Coccia (2022) report on governance relating to the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine in 12 countries around the world. While, unsurprisingly, wealthier nations have been able to provide a faster roll-out of their universal vaccination strategy, vaccine hesitancy, including belief in internet-reported conspiracy theories, remains a problem in achieving target vaccination levels.…”

“…Uptake of vaccination may be due to sociocultural factors as much as good governance; lower income African nations with good governance have also demonstrated the ability to implement effective programmes of vaccination (Edward-Ekpu, 2021). Good governance in African nations includes use of established methods of reaching distant locations, sufficient trained medical and paramedical staff able to administer vaccinations, and cold chain capacity (Benati and Coccia, 2022).…”

“…Findings demonstrate that good public governance increases COVID-19 vaccination rates up to a certain point but that cultural and religious factors, belief in conspiracy theories or distrust of scientific reports can all have a detrimental impact on vaccination uptake. For instance, vaccination refusal rates in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland are between 31 and 35% (Benati and Coccia, 2022). This has been explored previously in a scoping review, which raised some interesting points including the relationship between dependence on Internet sources for vaccination information and vaccine hesitancy.…”