Submission ID 118210
| Issue/Objective | COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy in developing countries amid scarce supplies is antithetical to public health's goal of preventing communicable disease. To determine which social ecological model (SEM) levels were most correlated with either high or low vaccination percentages in developing countries during the pandemic, a repeated, pooled cross-sectional analysis of COVID-19 vaccination rates in six developing countries from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 was conducted. |
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| Methodology/Approach | Developing countries were identified from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's Official Development Assistance lists, and the Global COVID-19 Vaccine Trends and Impacts Survey was a major source of data. SPSS, version 29, was used to analyze descriptive statistics, while assumptions testing, orthogonal polynomial regressions, and sensitivity and power analyses were performed in R, version 4.4.0. |
| Results | The main orthogonal polynomial regression model demonstrated that identifying as female compared to male and being between the ages of 25 to 44 compared to 45 to 54 were associated with reduced COVID-19 vaccination percentages, although not with statistical significance. However, in sensitivity analysis, both demographics were associated with statistically significant reductions in COVID-19 vaccination. Furthermore, the main model demonstrated that residing in a more Individualistic country was correlated with decreased vaccine percentages in a statistically significant manner, while in the sensitivity analysis, depending upon the polynomial degree under investigation, directionality of association varied. At the linear and quadratic levels, spending at least a day outside the home was correlated with a statistically significant decrease in COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, but this association only remained at the quadratic level in sensitivity analysis. Finally, knowing someone with COVID-19 symptoms was correlated with decreased COVID-19 vaccine acceptance at the linear level in the main model, but was no longer statistically significant at the same level in sensitivity analysis. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | While individual-level characteristics are important, higher levels of the SEM demonstrated stronger statistical correlations with percentages of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. These findings may help developing countries prepare quality vaccine education prevention materials and aid in determining which levels of the SEM merit the most emphasis in future pandemics involving novel viruses. |
| Presenters and affiliations | Cristina Smith Loma Linda University Daniel Handysides Loma Linda University Anna Nelson Loma Linda University Alan Cupino Loma Linda University Cristina Smith Loma Linda University |
