Political Populism, Institutional Distrust and Vaccination Uptake: A Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Politics is ubiquitous in public health, but vaccines had never been weaponized to instill distrust to gain political advantage. In pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios, populist political parties could use vaccine-related issues to generate distrust in evidence-based knowledge. Therefore, some questions arise. What impact could populist political parties impinge on vaccination uptake rates through sowing political discontent? What could the medical institutions do to avoid the adverse effects that these political strategies could infringe? For answering these research questions, we first hypothesized that vaccine uptake was negatively associated with distrust in the institutions. Furthermore, we analyzed whether populism mediates this relationship. In doing so, we hypothesized a positive association between distrust and populism, because populists, mainly fueled by politically discontent citizens, offer hope of a better future, blaming their misfortune on the actions of the elite. Additionally, we hypothesized that those citizens with a higher level of political dissatisfaction, following the claims of the populist political parties, will have lower vaccine uptake results, because they will be discouraged from making the efforts to counter the pandemic. Based on a survey carried out by the European Commission that covered 27 E.U. + U.K. countries (totaling 27,524 respondents), this paper proves that an individual’s political discontent fully mediates the relationship between distrust in institutions and vaccine uptake. Targeting the vaccine-hesitant population is quite convenient for populists because they only need to convince a minority of citizens not to be vaccinated to achieve their destabilizing goals. New outbreaks will appear if the minimum herd immunity coverage is not reached, reinforcing a vicious circle of distrust in elites, in consequence. For tackling this matter, recommendations are given to institutional managers from a social marketing standpoint.

The relationship between populism and attitudes on vaccine against COVID‐19: Trust in institutions as a moderation factor

“…The analysis of correlations in our study showed that populist attitudes are positively correlated with conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19, age (older participants are more populist), right-wing political orientation, and negatively correlated with trust in government institutions, perception of the spread of the virus, concern about COVID-19, acceptance of anti-COVID-19 vaccines, and compliance with anti-COVID-19 measures. These results are consistent with those found in the literature (e.g., Ehrke et al, 2023;Recio-Román et al, 2022).…”

Barriers to vaccine acceptance in the adult population of mainland Finland, 2021

“…In 2020, vaccine acceptance in European countries was influenced by mistrust in the safety and efficacy of vaccines [7], perceived risk of communicable disease, and socio-demographic determinants or specific population groups [1,[5][6][7][8][12][13][14][15][16]. Further barriers to vaccine acceptance were ideological reasons, lack of institutional confidence and confidence among healthcare workers (HCWs) [17][18][19][20][21], public perceptions of specific vaccines, inconvenience of vaccination services, and religious reasons or groups [7,21]. In Finland, official websites were widely used to increase vaccination coverage, informing citizens about vaccines and their safety.…”

A Case of Pharmaceutical Messianism Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Infodemiological Study of Ivermectin in the Philippines

“…For instance, the public dissemination of clinical trial results that refutes the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine, such as the RECOVERY trial in the United Kingdom, diminished public enthusiasm toward Hydroxychloroquine (Lasco & Yu, 2021; Lee et al, 2021; Saag, 2020). As a populist arsenal, studies show that pharmaceutical messianism can also be countered through information dissemination and social marketing strategies, including in online platforms (Lee et al, 2021; Recio-Román et al, 2022; Saag, 2020). Hence, there is a need to ensure that online public information regarding this “panacea” and other treatment options is highly searchable and easily understandable.…”

“…The “invocation of knowledge claims,” which may be detrimental to public health, was among the populist arsenals used by politicians during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Lasco, 2020 ; Sabahelzain et al, 2021 ). As populists arsenals, these claims can lead to difficulty achieving herd immunity coverage, new outbreaks, and a vicious distrust of social institutions ( Recio-Román et al, 2022 ). Thus, these arsenals could present as obstacles to the effective and efficient delivery of public health services and adversely affect population health in the process.…”