Which vaccine attributes foster vaccine uptake? A cross-country conjoint experiment

Abstract

Why do people prefer one particular COVID-19 vaccine over another? We conducted a pre-registered conjoint experiment (n = 5,432) in France, Germany, and Sweden in which respondents rated the favorability of and chose between pairs of hypothetical COVID-19 vaccines. Differences in effectiveness and the prevalence of side-effects had the largest effects on vaccine preferences. Factors with smaller effects include country of origin (respondents are less favorable to vaccines of Chinese and Russian origin), and vaccine technology (respondents exhibited a small preference for hypothetical mRNA vaccines). The general public also exhibits sensitivity to additional factors (e.g. how expensive the vaccines are). Our data show that vaccine attributes are more important for vaccine preferences among those with higher vaccine favorability and higher risk tolerance. In our conjoint design, vaccine attributes–including effectiveness and side-effect prevalence–appear to have more muted effects among the most vaccine hesitant respondents. The prevalence of side-effects, effectiveness, country of origin and vaccine technology (e.g., mRNA vaccines) determine vaccine acceptance, but they matter little among the vaccine hesitant. Vaccine hesitant people do not find a vaccine more attractive even if it has the most favorable attributes. While the communication of vaccine attributes is important, it is unlikely to convince those who are most vaccine hesitant to get vaccinated.

Vaccine nationalism among the public: A cross-country experimental evidence of own-country bias towards COVID-19 vaccination

“…Bearing this in mind, some of the previous studies on the determinants of vaccine acceptance have largely neglected the role of vaccine nationalism by focusing on other socio-political correlates or vaccine characteristics (e.g., Callaghan et al, 2021 ; Kaplan and Arnold, 2021 ; Murphy et al, 2021 ). Those studies that have taken the country of ori-gin into account have restricted their analysis to single-country studies (e.g., Motta, 2021 ; Kreps and Kriner, 2021 ), employed non-experimental methods ( Gramacho and Turgeon, 2021 ), or not collected the necessary evidence to evaluate the vaccine nationalism argu-ment ( Stöckli et al, 2022 ).…”

“…In the only cross-country study that, to our knowledge, considers the country-of- origin effect, Stöckli et al (2022) do not specifically examine the impact of vaccine na-tionalism. Using survey evidence from three European countries (France, Germany, and Sweden), the authors find that citizens have a preference for hypothetical vaccines de-veloped in Germany, United States, or the United Kingdom relative to those developed in China or Russia.…”

The citizen preferences–positive externality trade-off: A survey study of COVID-19 vaccine deployment in Japan

“…Previous works on vaccine hesitancy, such as Kreps et al (2020) ; Motta (2021) ; Niño et al (2021) ; Schwarzinger et al (2021) ; Kawata and Nakabayashi (2021) ; Hara et al (2021) ; Baccolini et al (2021) ; Latkin et al (2021) ; Niu et al (2022) , Stöckli et al (2022) , Falcone et al (2022) , among others, have addressed the interference of vaccine hesitancy in the positive externalities associated with vaccination, implicitly assuming that vaccines are adequately supplied. In the sense that we focus on the positive externalities of vaccination, we share an interest with these works.…”

“…During the early stages of the pandemic, addressing vaccine hesitancy was a serious issue ( Baccolini et al, 2021 ; Falcone et al, 2022 ; Hara et al, 2021 ; Kawata & Nakabayashi, 2021 ; Kreps et al, 2020 ; Latkin et al, 2021 ; Motta, 2021 ; Niño et al, 2021 ; Niu et al, 2022 ; Schwarzinger et al, 2021 ; Stöckli et al, 2022 ). A shared concern in the work on vaccine hesitancy is that such reluctance might mitigate the positive externality associated with vaccination.…”

“…Previous works on vaccine development have found that prepandemic geopolitical concerns cast a shadow. Kreps et al (2020) , Motta (2021) , Schwarzinger et al (2021) , Kawata and Nakabayashi (2021) , Vanhuysse et al (2021) , and Stöckli et al (2022) among others, found that people in advanced democracies such as the US, Japan, Germany, France, and Sweden tended to avoid proposed COVID-19 vaccines developed in nations with which they had geopolitical concerns, such as China and Russia. If this attitude originated from the quality of vaccine licensing or medical science in general in Russia and China, it could be justified as a rational judgment.…”