Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in a western Indian urban population: A parental survey

Introduction: Western experience shows that with subsequent waves of corona virus disease-2019 (Covid-19), children were affected more and required hospitalization. Universal Covid-19 vaccination among children is difficult to advocate given the low severity of Covid-19 in this age group.

Objectives: This study assesses vaccine hesitancy (VH) among an urban-majority survey-population in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and the factors bearing on it.

Method: A 26-point questionnaire was circulated among parents with children up to 18 years of age online as well as offline, assessing age, education, urban vs. rural dwelling, previous Covid-19 and Covid-19 vaccination status and the existing information regarding Covid-19 in children in previous and impending waves. Intention of the respondents to vaccinate their children immediately, wait-and-watch or not vaccinate at all and reasons leading to it were explored. The primary outcome was VH (wait-and-watch or not-opting-to-vaccinate). Intention to vaccinate immediately was taken as reference. We used multinomial logistic regression to assess the association of outcome with age, gender, education, previous Covid-19 and vaccination status. Analysis was done using STATA-16 software.

Results: Of 1102 respondents, VH was reported by 37.6%. Respondents who were older, females, unvaccinated, believed Covid-19 would not be more severe among children and those having safety concerns with vaccines were more likely to report VH. Vaccine related information obtained from healthcare workers was associated with the least VH. Rapid development and approval of vaccines did not affect VH.

Conclusions: Age, gender, Covid-19 vaccination status of parents and perception of severity of Covid-19 among children were major determinants of VH in our study. Source of vaccine-related (mis)information concerns related to short- and long-term safety of vaccines was significantly associated with VH.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2022; 51(3): 436-443