Vaccine uptake and hesitancy | Public Policy|Southampton

Examining predictors of vaccine uptake and hesitancy

Dr Michael Head and Dr Ken Brackstone

While high-income settings have achieved relatively high coverage with their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, as of 21 March 2022 under 40% of the world’s population are yet to receive a single dose of any COVID-19 vaccine.

Most unvaccinated people reside in low- and lower-middle income countries in sub-Saharan Africa which includes Ghana, where only 14.4% of the country is considered fully vaccinated.

With the recent emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, large-scale vaccination coverage is fundamental to the national and global pandemic response. Government, healthcare, and policy groups in Ghana will require timely data to guide their immunisation strategies.

Thus, it is fundamental to develop a rich understanding of the factors that influence people’s willingness to be vaccinated – especially in “hard to reach” rural communities where people may be more cut off from credible information sources.

Amongst the range of measures identified, the findings from this brief particularly highlight the role of tailored health promotion messages about the continuing dangers of COVID-19 to reiterate the importance of the vaccine.