In January 2021, Professors Sarah Zukerman Daly and John Marshall with Ph.D. candidates Pablo Argote, Elena Barham, Julian Gerez, and Oscar Pocasangre carried out a cross-country analysis of vaccine hesitant respondents across Latin America. Their study experimentally tested how five features of mass vaccination campaigns—the vaccine’s producer, efficacy, endorser,distributor, and current population uptake rate—shifted willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
They found that citizens preferred Western-produced vaccines but were highly influenced by factual information about vaccine efficacy. Vaccine hesitant individuals were more responsive to vaccine messengers with medical expertise than political, religious, or media elite endorsements. Citizen trust in foreign governments, domestic leaders, and state institutions moderated the effects of the campaign features on vaccine acceptance. These findings can help inform the design of unfolding mass inoculation campaigns.
Their research is detailed in an article available to read at njp|Vaccines.
