Perception of the COVID-19 Epidemic and Acceptance of Vaccination Among Healthcare Workers Prior to Vaccine Licensure — Beijing Municipality, China, May–July 2020

Abstract

What is already known about this topic?The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine development has been progressing, but acceptance of the new vaccines by healthcare workers (HCWs) was not well known prior to approval of COVID-19 vaccines in China. What is added by this report?This study found that before vaccine approval, Beijing HCWs expressed moderate willingness to get vaccinated. Factors positively influencing willingness included free vaccination and belief that the vaccine had been fully evaluated. A negatively influencing factor was presence of an underlying disease. Trust in vaccines, in general, was positively associated with willingness to get new vaccines. What are the implications for public health practice? COVID-19 vaccines should be provided at no cost to HCWs. Effective measures should be taken to enhance the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among HCWs in China.The coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines are expected to be widely used, but awareness and acceptance of the new COVID-19 vaccines by healthcare workers (HCWs) was not well known prior to approval by China's vaccine regulatory authority. The research conducted a cross-sectional survey in Beijing to assess HCWs' perceptions of the COVID-19 epidemic and attitudes towards vaccination before COVID-19 vaccines were approved. Multivariate analyses were used to evaluate factors associated with willingness to get vaccinated. A total of 8,040 HCWs were recruited; 67.1% reported they would get vaccinated, while the rest were unsure or indicated they would not get vaccinated. Factors associated with willingness to get vaccinated included the epidemic situation and its prognosis, perception of disease severity, and perceived risk of getting infected. Multivariate analyses found two factors strongly associated with willingness, "wanting the vaccine to be free of charge" (OR: 5.78, 95% CI: 5.05-6.60, P<0.001) and "belief that the vaccine was fully evaluated prior to licensure" (OR: 4.45, 95% CI: 3.81-5.20, P<0.001). One factor, "presence of an underlying disease" was found to be negatively associated with willingness (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.61-0.90, P<0.001). The results supported a free vaccination policy and use of effective measures to remove barriers and convey accurate information about COVID-19 vaccines to enhance acceptance of the vaccines among HCWs in China.The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the COVID-19 virus also known as SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in global public health and economic crises (1). The general consensus is that successful vaccines should be developed to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by the disease (2). Many countries have been promoting vaccine research and achieving landmark results over the past months (3). Several vaccines completed Phase III clinical trials and have been put into extensive use.Based on previous experience, it is highly likely that HCWs will be recommended as a priority population for vaccination. Experience has shown that even if vaccines are successfully developed, the acceptance may not be ideal (4)....

The Uptake and Vaccination Willingness of COVID-19 Vaccine among Chinese Residents: Web-Based Online Cross-Sectional Study

“…This is consistent with the results of previous studies. For example, people with underlying diseases were generally less willing to be vaccinated [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] as they were more likely to refuse to be vaccinated due to worrying that the vaccination would aggravate their underlying diseases. This was more likely for women who were pregnant or preparing for pregnancy to refuse vaccinations, studies showed that they may hesitate to uptake the vaccine [33,34] due to the concerns about vaccine safety that large sample studies on the safety of vaccines in this group were invalid [33,35].…”

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

“…Studies found that vaccine hesitancy caused by misinformation, pre-existing medical conditions, mistrust towards medical institutions and governments, concerns for vaccine efficacy, fear of vaccine adverse effects and respondents' sociodemographic characteristics were the main reasons behind vaccination reluctance [29][30][31][32][33]. Other studies identified healthcare workers, nurses, college students and parents with children under 18 as specific groups requiring targeted provaccine communication to address vaccine hesitancy [16,31,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Health belief models related Chinese vaccine hesitancy to individual cognition factors, such as perceived benefits, perceived risks and perceived barriers [33,37].…”