The Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania has published new data in Nature Human Behavior identifying which vaccine strategies specific countries should adopt based on their needs to increase vaccine uptake.
In the past 20 years, rising vaccine hesitancy has led to suboptimal uptake of influenza, measles, polio, HPV, and other vaccines, while COVID-19 vaccines have also been met with skepticism.
The recommendations are based on findings from 88 eligible randomized controlled trials testing interventions with 1,628,768 participants from 17 countries.
Overall, interventions were associated with an estimated 50% higher chance of vaccination compared to "control" conditions with no intervention (odds ratio [OR], 1.5; 95% confidence interval (CI], 1.27 to 1.77).
Educational campaigns have no impact
In general, educational campaigns aimed at correcting vaccine misinformation had no significant impact on vaccine uptake. Instead, efforts to increase access to vaccines had the most success.
Vaccination rates tripled, however, with intervention aimed at offering free transportation to vaccine sites or at bringing vaccines to nursing homes and workplaces. Some studies showed offering financial incentives had minor success in increasing vaccine uptake.
Even though misinformation undermines democracy and can be far-fetched, and thus highly salient, correcting it does not ensure health behaviors like vaccination.
"Public health officials often say that ensuring vaccine access is the first step to promoting immunization," said Dolores Albarracin, PhD, of the APPC, in a university press release. "Our meta-analysis provides hard evidence in support of this recommendation, and indicates that this should be a special priority in under-resourced areas with limited access to health care.
"By contrast, even though misinformation undermines democracy and can be far-fetched, and thus highly salient, correcting it does not ensure health behaviors like vaccination."
