There are lots of ways to define and measure vaccine hesitancy, but pretty much however you slice the data, about 1 in 5 adults in the US report being something other than gung-ho about the vaccine. That figure hasn’t budged for several months.
But let’s back up just a bit. What exactly do researchers mean by “vaccine hesitancy”? It’s commonly defined as an attitude, belief, motivation, or intention (something you think or feel) vs. a behavior or an action (something you do). So, you can be vaccine hesitant but still get vaccinated. You can also be the opposite of vaccine hesitant — motivated, determined, excited, committed — and still *not* get vaccinated. That’s an important distinction to keep in mind as we dig into some recent data on vaccine hesitancy and intentions.
One leading source of data on COVID-19 vaccine intentions is the Kaiser Family Foundation. They have been asking people about the vaccines since early 2020 (link below to the most recent KFF report). Their vaccine intentions question is asked in two parts: “Have you personally received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or not? When an FDA authorized COVID-19 vaccine is available to you, will you…?” The possible answers are: Already got vaccinated, Get the vaccine as soon as you can, Wait and see, Only if required, Definitely not get the vaccine. (As with most surveys like this, you can also refuse to answer the question or say you don’t know).
Since December 2020, the “Definitely not” plus “Only if required” groups have held steady at 22-24%. Notably, the “wait and see” group declined from 39% in December to 22% in February. Does that mean hesitancy has declined? Well, it depends on what you think a “wait and see” answer reflects about motivation and intention. Responses also vary a lot by age, gender, race, political party, and education — see link below for lots of more details.
Another deep drive into the hesitancy question arrived this week in a report from the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University. They conducted a very large survey (18 million responses!) with Facebook (link below to a Vox story summarizing the findings). This survey grouped people into four categories based on answers to questions about intentions and behavior: Did not receive a vaccination but would, Received a vaccination, Did not receive a vaccination and felt hesitant, Did not receive a vaccination and skipped question on intent. The “did not receive a vaccination and felt hesitant” group stayed quite flat at 23-25% from mid-January to late February, remarkably consistent with the KFF data.
The Carnegie Mellon data also showed lots of variation by geography. States where the fewest unvaccinated people reported being likely to accept a Covid-19 vaccine included Wyoming, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alaska, and North Dakota. Vaccine hesitancy was lower in cities compared to rural areas. As with the KFF data, there’s lots more data to explore in the full report.
As we transition to having more vaccine supply available across the US, hesitancy may emerge as the limiting factor in reaching adequate population protection from COVID-19 through herd immunity. Tracking it over time and by different groups will remain an important aspect of pandemic surveillance for months to come.
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