Lowering COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among immigrants in Norway: Opinions and suggestions by immigrants

Abstract

Even though COVID-19 vaccine has been proved effective, vaccine uptake and coverage has been and still is a great concern across different immigrant groups. Vaccine hesitancy remains a barrier to accept the vaccine among immigrants across the globe—including Norway—despite higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths. This study aimed to explore the opinions and suggestions of immigrants on how to lower the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among immigrants in Norway. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 88 persons with different immigrant background. Data was analyzed using framework analysis, utilizing “3Cs model of vaccine hesitancy” as a theoretical framework. The analysis yielded five main themes related to factors that may lower the vaccine hesitancy among immigrants in Norway: (1) Effective cultural communication, (2) Vaccine advocacy through community engagement, (3) Motivating factors, (4) Collaborative efforts via government and healthcare, and (5) Incentives for vaccination. This study enhanced our understanding of factors that according to immigrants themselves may lower the vaccine hesitancy. The insights obtained in this study can contribute to a better understanding of the current status of vaccine uptake among immigrants and can further give directions on how to improve vaccine uptake in these groups in Norway.

Vaccine Hesitancy among Immigrants: A Narrative Review of Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons Learned

“…Contributing factors to vaccine hesitancy were misinformation, lack of knowledge, safety concerns, personal beliefs, language barriers, immigrant status, and vaccine access. Moreover, most of the studies presented interesting perspectives on vaccine hesitancy, including "social stigma", "loss of autonomy", "fatalism", "immigration status", "parental consent", "old age", and "lack of formal education" [12,20,21,23,24,27,29,[31][32][33]37,[39][40][41].…”

Koronavaksinering blant unge med innvandrerbakgrunn

“…I den norske registerstudien er det foreslått flere årsaker til ulikheter i vaksinedekning som kan ses i sammenheng med studien til Sentamilvannan og Al-Dekany (6, 7), deriblant anbefalinger og råd til ulike aldersgrupper, sosioøkonomiske faktorer tilknyttet foreldrene samt sosiale faktorer som kan påvirke motivasjonen for å bli vaksinert. I andre intervjuundersøkelser har det kommet frem at mangel på god informasjon og kunnskap samt lavere tillit til myndighetene kan vaere medvirkende faktorer og at dialog og samarbeid med miljøene kan vaere nyttig for å bygge tillit og redusere skepsis (8,9).…”

Vaksinenøling under koronapandemien blant unge med etnisk minoritetsbakgrunn i Oslo øst – en kvalitativ studie

“…Flere av deltakerne nevnte muligheten til å reise til familiens hjemland med koronasertifikat som en viktig fremmende faktor for vaksinering. Det samsvarer med funnene i en norsk studie om vaksinenøling blant voksne i etniske minoritetsgrupper (22).…”

“…Våre deltakere ønsket en fagperson til stede på skolen for å avkrefte falske rykter. En mulighet kunne vaere å kurse skolenes helsesykepleiere, slik at de er i stand til å imøtekomme elevenes bekymringer (22).…”