In March 2021, Italian health authorities suspended the Vaxzevria vaccine (VA) for 4 days over reports of very rare blood disorders among recipients. We exploit the quasi-experimental setting arising from this break to study the drivers of vaccine hesitancy. Before the suspension, the VA vaccination trend followed the same pattern as Pfizer-Biontech (PB). After the suspension, VA and PB injections started to diverge, with VA daily decreasing by almost 60 doses per 100,000 inhabitants for the following 3 weeks. The resulting vaccination rate was 60 percent lower than the value that would have stemmed from the VA pre-suspension pattern. We show that the slowdown was weaker and less persistent in regions with higher COVID penetration and steadier and more pronounced in regions displaying greater attention to vaccine side effects as detected through Google searches. The public's interest in vaccine adverse events negatively correlates with COVID cases and deaths across regions.

Perceived risk and vaccine hesitancy: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy / C. Deiana, A. Geraci, G. Mazzarella, F. Sabatini. - In: HEALTH ECONOMICS. - ISSN 1057-9230. - 31:6(2022 Jun), pp. 1266-1275. [10.1002/hec.4506]

Perceived risk and vaccine hesitancy: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy

G. Mazzarella
Penultimo
;
2022

Abstract

In March 2021, Italian health authorities suspended the Vaxzevria vaccine (VA) for 4 days over reports of very rare blood disorders among recipients. We exploit the quasi-experimental setting arising from this break to study the drivers of vaccine hesitancy. Before the suspension, the VA vaccination trend followed the same pattern as Pfizer-Biontech (PB). After the suspension, VA and PB injections started to diverge, with VA daily decreasing by almost 60 doses per 100,000 inhabitants for the following 3 weeks. The resulting vaccination rate was 60 percent lower than the value that would have stemmed from the VA pre-suspension pattern. We show that the slowdown was weaker and less persistent in regions with higher COVID penetration and steadier and more pronounced in regions displaying greater attention to vaccine side effects as detected through Google searches. The public's interest in vaccine adverse events negatively correlates with COVID cases and deaths across regions.
COVID-19; Google searches; Vaxzevria vaccine; vaccine hesitancy; COVID-19 Vaccines; Humans; SARS-CoV-2; Vaccination Hesitancy; COVID-19; Vaccines
Settore SECS-P/01 - Economia Politica
Settore SECS-P/02 - Politica Economica
Settore SECS-P/03 - Scienza delle Finanze
Settore SECS-P/05 - Econometria
giu-2022
22-mar-2022
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hec.4506
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/937729
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