Taking the Covid-19 vaccine or not? Understanding vaccination attitude using trust in experts and trust in government

Governments worldwide are currently focusing on the development of a vaccine to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the scientific progress in the development of such vaccine appears to be promising, policymakers are facing an extra hurdle as increasingly more people appear to be hesitant in their willingness to take such a vaccine. This paper aims to explain such vaccine hesitancy by linking it to institutional trust. Institutional trust provides legitimacy to policy makers’ actions and can therefore be expected to play a pivotal role in vaccine hesitancy. Institutional trust is likely to be undermined during the pandemic as partisan politics increasingly infringed on the scientific response to the outbreak, and misinformation and disinformation on COVID-19 thrived. The link between institutional trust and vaccine hesitancy is examined using a large COVID-19 survey conducted in Flanders. Given the important consequences of vaccine hesitancy for the success of a Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, we hope these results lead to a better understanding of this important issue.

Publication year:2020

Keywords:P3 Proceeding

Accessibility:Closed