IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i11p6694-d828090.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics

Author

Listed:
  • Michelle Engelbrecht

    (Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa)

  • Christo Heunis

    (Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa)

  • Gladys Kigozi

    (Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State, P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa)

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy, long considered a global health threat, poses a major barrier to effective roll-out of COVID-19 vaccination. With less than half (45%) of adult South Africans currently fully vaccinated, we identified factors affecting non-uptake of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy in order to identify key groups to be targeted when embarking upon COVID-19 vaccine promotion campaigns. A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey was undertaken among the South African adult population in September 2021. Our research identified race, interactive–critical vaccine literacy, trust in the government’s ability to roll out the COVID-19 vaccination programme, flu vaccination status and risk perception for COVID-19 infection as key factors influencing the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination. Respondents who did not trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination were almost 13 times more likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared to those respondents who did trust the government. Reliable, easy-to-understand information regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines is needed, but it is also important that vaccination promotion and communication strategies include broader trust-building measures to enhance South Africans’ trust in the government’s ability to roll out vaccination effectively and safely. This may also be the case in other countries where distrust in governments’ ability prevails.

Suggested Citation

  • Michelle Engelbrecht & Christo Heunis & Gladys Kigozi, 2022. "COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in South Africa: Lessons for Future Pandemics," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-13, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:11:p:6694-:d:828090
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6694/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/11/6694/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ivana Gusar & Suzana Konjevoda & Grozdana Babić & Dijana Hnatešen & Maja Čebohin & Rahela Orlandini & Boris Dželalija, 2021. "Pre-Vaccination COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy in a Croatian Adult Population: A Cross-Sectional Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-10, July.
    2. Philip Ball, 2021. "The lightning-fast quest for COVID vaccines — and what it means for other diseases," Nature, Nature, vol. 589(7840), pages 16-18, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Agarwal, Ruchir & Gaule, Patrick, 2022. "What drives innovation? Lessons from COVID-19 R&D," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    2. Eva D. Regnier & Joel W. Feldmeier, 2022. "D Minus Months: Strategic Planning for Weather-Sensitive Decisions," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Galdikiene, Laura & Jaraite, Jurate & Kajackaite, Agne, 2022. "Trust and vaccination intentions: Evidence from Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 17(11), pages 1-1.
    4. Yihui Li & Yi Guo & Xusheng Wu & Qingyuan Hu & Dehua Hu, 2022. "The Development and Preliminary Application of the Chinese Version of the COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy Scale," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-17, October.
    5. Zoppelletto, Alessia & Bullini Orlandi, Ludovico, 2022. "Cultural and digital collaboration infrastructures as sustainability enhancing factors: A configurational approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    6. Hongmei Sun & Fuminori Toyasaki & Ioanna Falagara Sigala, 2023. "Incentivizing at‐risk production capacity building for COVID‐19 vaccines," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(5), pages 1550-1566, May.
    7. Željko Pavić & Emma KovaÄ ević & Adrijana Å uljok & Juraj Jurlina & Maja MiÅ¡kulin & Aida Mujkić & Ivan MiÅ¡kulin, 2023. "The Deficit and Contextual Models of Vaccine Hesitancy: A Test of the Mediation Paths," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    8. Lu, Yunshu & Wang, Quanfang & Zhu, Shan & Xu, Sen & Kadirhaz, Muhtar & Zhang, Yushan & Zhao, Nan & Fang, Yu & Chang, Jie, 2023. "Lessons learned from COVID-19 vaccination implementation: How psychological antecedents of vaccinations mediate the relationship between vaccine literacy and vaccine hesitancy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 336(C).
    9. Algehyne, Ebrahem A. & Ibrahim, Muhammad, 2021. "Fractal-fractional order mathematical vaccine model of COVID-19 under non-singular kernel," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    10. Chiara Cadeddu & Luca Regazzi & Guglielmo Bonaccorsi & Aldo Rosano & Brigid Unim & Robert Griebler & Thomas Link & Paola De Castro & Roberto D’Elia & Valeria Mastrilli & Luigi Palmieri, 2022. "The Determinants of Vaccine Literacy in the Italian Population: Results from the Health Literacy Survey 2019," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-13, April.
    11. Mingolla, Stefano & Lu, Zhongming, 2022. "Impact of implementation timing on the effectiveness of stay-at-home requirement under the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons from the Italian Case," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(6), pages 504-511.
    12. Uzuegbunam, Ikenna & Uzuegbunam, Nkiruka & Chuka-Obah, Chinwe, 2023. "State-level Religiosity and the Initial Adoption of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 53(2), September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:11:p:6694-:d:828090. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.