Assessing COVID-19 vaccine literacy: a preliminary online survey

Abstract

The COVID-19 infodemic can be countered by scientific evidence, clear and consistent communication, and improved health literacy of both individuals in need of information and those providing it. A rapid online survey was carried out to evaluate vaccine literacy (VL) skills in the general population and perceptions about COVID-19 vaccine candidates, along with behavior and beliefs about current vaccinations. Observed VL levels were consistent with previous observations – where comparable self-reported tools were administered face-to-face and by paper-and-pencil – the mean functional score being = 2.92, while the interactive-critical score was = 3.27, out of a maximum of 4. Perceptions regarding future COVID-19 vaccines, along with beliefs about vaccination, were mostly positive and significantly associated with functional and interactive-critical VL scales. Despite limitations, the study confirms that surveys via the web are a suitable method to evaluate and track attitudes during infectious disease outbreaks and assess health literacy skills about vaccination, which can be useful to adapt medical communication strategies, for a better understanding of the value of immunization.

Factors Influencing Public Attitudes towards COVID-19 Vaccination: A Scoping Review Informed by the Socio-Ecological Model

“…In this review, 28 studies depicted the sociodemographic factors associated with public attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccination. Coherent to findings from the literature [78], the most common factors found to influence vaccine acceptance at the microlevel were age, educational level, gender, race, and income status [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53]63,65,68,[71][72][73]. More willingness to receive a vaccine was reported in the older age group [23,25,27,31,34,35,38,53,65], while resistance, hesitancy, and lack of intention to be vaccinated emerged in the younger age group [29,35,51].…”

Italian Adults’ Likelihood of Getting COVID-19 Vaccine: A Second Online Survey

“…An investigation carried out via the web in Italy in September 2020 has shown that only 54% would have accepted to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (data collected by an ordinal scale) [10]. On the contrary, we observed a high proportion (>90%) willing to get vaccinated from both the online cross-sectional surveys conducted in June 2020 and January 2021, where data were gathered by the means of a nominal variable (affirmative or negative replies) [2].…”

“…Answers were rated by a forced 4 point Likert scale for frequency. As in previous studies using a similar scale [2,4,5], the score was obtained from the mean value of the answers to each item (range 1 to 4), a higher value corresponding to a higher vaccine literacy level.…”

“…In June 2020, we conducted a rapid online cross-sectional survey [2] to evaluate the feasibility of assessing the levels of health literacy skills about vaccination (vaccine literacy) in 885 Italian adults. Other objectives were to collect opinions and attitudes of the interviewees about candidate COVID-19 vaccines, including willingness to get vaccinated, using nominal scales ('yes' or 'no' questions).…”

COVID-19 and Scientific Literacy

“…In the specific case of COVID-19, this results in the overload of information and misinformation about the pandemic in traditional media, but especially in social media/digital social networks, namely its origin, transmission, diagnosis and treatment in a pandemic context, among other negative limitations. This naturally hampers the combat against this pandemic, both preventatively and curatively, generating higher uncertainty (Naeem & Bhatti, 2020;Biasio et al, 2020;Anwar et al, 2020;Amit Aharon, Ruban, & Dubovi, 2020;Li & Liu, 2020;Halat et al, 2020;Al-Zaman, 2020;Abdulai, Tiffere, Adam, & Kabanunye, 2021;Stokken & Børsen, 2020). In this regard, Peters and Besley (2020) argue that,…”