People’s perceptions of, willingness-to-take preventive remedies and their willingness-to-vaccinate during times of heightened health threats

Abstract

Pandemics, such as the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, represents a health threat to humans worldwide. During times of heightened health risks, the public’s perceptions, and acceptance of evidence-based preventive measures, such as vaccines, is of high relevance. Moreover, people might seek other preventive remedies to protect themselves from getting infected (e.g., herbal remedies, nutritional supplements). A recent study on consumers’ preference for naturalness showed that people put more weight on perceived naturalness of a preventive remedy compared to a curative one. This result was attributed to the increased focus on perceived effectiveness as opposed to perceived risk. This raises the question whether the current pandemic would shift people’s perceptions from prevention to curing and thus, exhibit a preference for synthetic remedies because they are seen as more effective. The present online experiment (conducted in April 2021) investigated people’s perceptions of vaccines and remedies within the context of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. A 2x2 between-subject design with type of remedy (natural vs. synthetic) and salience of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (high vs. low) was conducted in Switzerland in spring 2021 (N = 452). The data did not provide evidence of a curative mindset for preventive remedies, as the participants exhibited a clear preference for the natural remedy compared to the synthetic remedy. Our study stresses the importance of understanding people’s mindsets on how to protect themselves from infection with a virus during an ongoing pandemic to tackle misinformation and vaccine hesitancy.

The role of response efficacy and risk aversion in promoting compliance during crisis

“…We speculate that this may be because risk averse individuals may be more like to avoid vaccines, preferring a more natural means of protection. Indeed, research supports the conjecture that, for some consumers, vaccines are perceived as risky, and consumers prefer more natural as opposed to synthetic means of infection prevention (Bearth et al, 2022; Scott, Martin, et al, 2020a; Scott, Rozin, & Small, 2020b). As such, consumers who are risk averse would most likely want to avoid risky forms of COVID‐compliant behaviors, i.e., vaccinations.…”

Entrepreneurship, Economic Development and Public Policy in the Post-Pandemic World

“…Perceiving vaccines as natural may make vaccine attitudes more favorable [cf. Bearth et al, 2022;Meier et al, 2021]. Thus, identifying the factors playing a role in this mechanism may help build public support for vaccinations.…”

“…Ditlevsen et al [2020] demonstrated that non-experts perceived synthetic livestock vaccines as less natural and riskier than other vaccines. Bearth et al [2022] and Meier et al [2021] suggest the naturalness bias as a factor of COVID-19 vaccination intent.…”

“…However, the role of perceived vaccine naturalness is surprisingly understudied from the consumer behavior perspective [e.g. Meier et al, 2021;Bearth et al, 2022], despite a large amount of research on the role of perceived naturalness for other products [e.g. Li, Chapman, 2012;Machado et al, 2015;Meier et al, 2019].…”

Attitudes of healthcare workers and members of the public toward the COVID-19 vaccine: A cross-sectional survey

“… 56 Risk perception regarding potential consequences of getting vaccinated has been suggested as a driver or barrier to COVID-19 vaccine uptake. 6 In a review of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, common vaccine-specific factors associated with increased vaccine hesitancy included beliefs that vaccines are not safe or effective and increased concerns about the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines. 57 Understanding risk perception toward the COVID-19 vaccine is important for carrying out vaccination campaigns, encouraging vaccination, improving the provided information and the quality of treatment.…”