Individual Preferences for COVID-19 Vaccination under the China’s 2021 National Vaccination Policy: A Discrete Choice Experiment Study

Abstract

(1) Background: Since China’s national vaccination policy announcement in January 2021, individual vaccination preferences related to vaccine characteristics, social relationships, sociodemographic characteristics and cognition remain opaque. This study aims to investigate vaccination preferences regarding these attributes, and to assess changes in individual vaccine preferences since the pre-2021 emergency vaccination phase. (2) Methods: The two-part questionnaire surveyed 849 individuals between May and June 2021 in Qingdao, China. The survey contained eight binary choice tasks that investigated preference trade-offs. Respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics, including age, sex, urban/rural residence, income, education and whether living with the young or old, were also collected. Conditional logit, mixed logit and latent class models were used to quantify preference utility and identify preference heterogeneity. (3) Results: Vaccine effectiveness, vaccine side effects, duration of protection and probability of infection all significantly affected vaccination utility. Preference heterogeneity based on individual social relationships and sociodemographic characteristics were also established. Marginal analysis showed that compared to the pre-2021 phase, individuals’ preferences had shifted towards vaccines with longer protection periods and better accessibility. (4) Conclusion: This study will inform the full rollout of China’s 2021 national vaccination program and provide valuable information for future vaccination policy design to meet resurgent COVID-19 risks.

Relationship between Income and Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China

“…Income has a crucial impact on people’s living conditions. Therefore, it has been widely studied, with researchers exploring its impact on dietary nutrition and aspects such as vaccinations, renewable energy, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, physical activity, and household water consumption [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. It is clear that income affects people’s lives and physical health; however, its impact on mental health has rarely been systematically analyzed.…”

Impact of income on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Based on the 2020 China family panel survey

“…Income has a critical impact on people’s living conditions. Many researchers exploring their impact on dietary nutrition and aspects such as vaccinations, renewable energy, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, physical activity, and household water consumption ( Baigorri et al, 2022 ; Jiménez-Zazo et al, 2022 ; Jin et al, 2022 ; Mehmood et al, 2022 ; Valsta et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022 ). All of them prove that income can affect people’s lives and physical health.…”

Student COVID-19 vaccination preferences in China: A discrete choice experiment

“…Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are a quantitative method to examine stated preferences over hypothetical alternative scenarios (15). Widely used to reveal the preference trade-offs for vaccine related-characteristics, social characteristics and cognition both before and after the implementation of China's 2021 COVID-19 vaccination program (16)(17)(18), the theoretical basis of the discrete choice model is the theory of consumer demand choice, where consumers fully understand their preferences, and random utility theory, where consumers can consistently order rank their choices based on their preferences (19). In DCEs, respondents are asked to select from different scenarios comprising hypothetical alternatives to maximize their utility.…”

“…Importantly, Qingdao was one of the first regions to roll out the COVID-19 vaccines, and one of the first to experience the 2022 COVID-19 outbreaks (32,33). Importantly, our DCE model, extends many existing DCE frameworks of vaccine intrinsic attributes (effectiveness, vaccine-related side effects, protection duration and vaccination sites) by including extrinsic social relationship attributes (measured by the percentage of acquaintances vaccinated) and cognition factors (measured by the perception of risk) (17,18). We also innovatively conducted sub-group analysis to investigate preference heterogeneity based on student majors and risk tolerance.…”

“…We also innovatively conducted sub-group analysis to investigate preference heterogeneity based on student majors and risk tolerance. We compare our results against previous DCE non-student and general public DCE studies to gain insight into any different barriers and motivations between student vaccination and general public preferences ( 16 – 18 ). The results of our study will inform universities and local governments on targeted vaccination policies for Chinese college students.…”