Thinking on your feet: Beauty and auto small businesses maneuver the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in March 2020. Several prophylactic vaccines against COVID-19 are currently in development, yet little is known about people’s acceptability of a COVID-19 vaccine. Methods We conducted an online survey of adults ages 18 and older in the United States (n=2,006) in May 2020. Multivariable relative risk regression identified correlates of participants’ willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine (i.e., vaccine acceptability). Results Overall, 69% of participants were willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Participants were more likely to be willing to get vaccinated if they thought their healthcare provider would recommend vaccination (RR=1.73, 95% CI: 1.49–2.02) or if they were moderate (RR=1.09, 95% CI: 1.02–1.16) or liberal (RR=1.14, 95% CI: 1.07–1.22) in their political leaning. Participants were also more likely to be willing to get vaccinated if they reported higher levels of perceived likelihood getting a COVID-19 infection in the future (RR=1.05, 95% CI: 1.01–1.09), perceived severity of COVID-19 infection (RR=1.08, 95% CI: 1.04–1.11), or perceived effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine (RR=1.46, 95% CI: 1.40–1.52). Participants were less likely to be willing to get vaccinated if they were non-Latinx black (RR=0.81, 95% CI: 0.74–0.90) or reported a higher level of perceived potential vaccine harms (RR=0.95, 95% CI: 0.92–0.98). Conclusions Many adults are willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, though acceptability should be monitored as vaccine development continues. Our findings can help guide future efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccine acceptability (and uptake if a vaccine becomes available). Show more

Background Monitoring the reasons why a considerable number of people do not receive recommended vaccinations allows identification of important trends over time, and designing and evaluating strategies to address vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake. Existing validated measures assessing vaccine hesitancy focus primarily on confidence in vaccines and the system that delivers them. However, empirical and theoretical work has stated that complacency (not perceiving diseases as high risk), constraints (structural and psychological barriers), calculation (engagement in extensive information searching), and aspects pertaining to collective responsibility (willingness to protect others) also play a role in explaining vaccination behavior. The objective was therefore to develop a validated measure of these 5C psychological antecedents of vaccination. Methods and findings Three cross-sectional studies were conducted. Study 1 uses factor analysis to develop an initial scale and assesses the sub-scales’ convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity (N = 1,445, two German convenience-samples). In Study 2, a sample representative regarding age and gender for the German population (N = 1,003) completed the measure for vaccination in general and for specific vaccinations to assess the potential need for a vaccine-specific wording of items. Study 3 compared the novel scale’s performance with six existing measures of vaccine hesitancy (N = 350, US convenience-sample). As an outcome, a long (15-item) and short (5-item) 5C scale were developed as reliable and valid indicators of confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility. The 5C sub-scales correlated with relevant psychological concepts, such as attitude (confidence), perceived personal health status and invulnerability (complacency), self-control (constraints), preference for deliberation (calculation), and communal orientation (collective responsibility), among others. The new scale provided similar results when formulated in a general vs. vaccine-specific way (Study 2). In a comparison of seven measures the 5C scale was constantly among the scales that explained the highest amounts of variance in analyses predicting single vaccinations (between 20% and 40%; Study 3). The present studies are limited to the concurrent validity of the scales. Conclusions The 5C scale provides a novel tool to monitor psychological antecedents of vaccination and facilitates diagnosis, intervention design and evaluation. Its short version is suitable for field settings and regular global monitoring of relevant antecedents of vaccination. Show more