How evolutionary science can help us understand vaccine refusal in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Summary Unvaccinated people have a mortality rate from COVID-19 that is 32-fold that of fully vaccinated people. Yet, in the UK, more than 4% of adults have not accepted a vaccine to protect them against COVID-19 and at the time of writing only 73% of people were fully vaccinated. Psychological and societal factors underlying vaccine hesitation or refusal are complex. In this paper, we use evolutionary science to help explain how vaccine refusal can be the result of an historic adaptation to protect against the repetition of past trauma, including, for many, that of systemic racism and/or deprivation, and misguided attempt to preserve fertility. We discuss some resulting cognitive biases and conclude with recommendations for practice.

Evobiopsychosocial medicine

“…Mirroring the case of rheumatoid arthritis, current mainstream strategies to encourage ideal psychosocial measures are generally uninformed by relevant evolutionary research. Understanding and predicting human responses to pandemics, lockdowns and novel treatments was thus missing theoretical depth—recognizing the functional and phylogenetic factors of importance [ 49 , 50 ] may improve psychosocial interventions and save lives.…”