Role of Individual, Social and Health Factors as Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Results from the Second Phase of the Italian EPICOVID19 Web-Based Survey

• DOI: 10.20944/preprints202502.0380.v1
• Publication Date: 2025-02-07T02:38:16Z
• Authors: Fulvio Adorni; Chiara Cavigli; Nithiya Jesuthasan; Liliana Cori; Aleksandra Sojic; Fabrizio Bianchi; Olivia Curzio; Federica Prinelli

Background Despite scientific breakthroughs in vaccine development, some people remain reluc-tant to accept the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. This study evaluates attitudes and behaviours to-wards factors associated with refusal/hesitancy at start of Italy's vaccination campaign. Methods: EPICOVID19 is a two-phase observational web-based where adult volunteers completed questionnaires April-June 2020 January-February 2021. Refusal/hesitancy was assessed among those not yet vaccinated. We analysed by applying multivariate multinomial logistic regression models. Results: Among 36,820 survey participants (mean age 51 years, 59.7% women, 63.6% highly ed-ucated), 2,449 (6.7%) were against or hesitant, 4,468 (12.1%) inclined but unsure, 29,903 (81.2%) willing be Factors positively included female sex, middle age, at-risk occupations, medium low education, deprived status, being underweight, previous SARS-CoV-2 positivity, poor perceived health, no fear contracting SARS-CoV-2, contaminated food natural disasters, trust science, media, government, institutions. Low hesitancy student retired over-weight obesity, moderate high alcohol consumption, concern about economic working conditions, sensitivity climate change/environmental pollution epidemics. Conclusions: showed that during first month campaign, individuals reluctant receive The highlights po-tential target groups for tailored communication prevention campaigns.