Interrogating Changes in COVID-19 Vaccine Intent During the National Vaccine Rollout in the Philippines

Abstract

AbstractTo mitigate the unprecedented health, social, and economic damage of COVID-19, the Philippines implemented a nation-wide vaccine program to mitigate the effects of the global pandemic. In a previous study, we interrogated COVID-19 vaccine intent in the country by deploying a nationwide open-access online survey, two months before the initial rollout of the national vaccination program that began in March of 2021. In this follow-up study, we explored the influence of the ongoing vaccine rollout on vaccine intent by deploying a similar survey six months after the initial rollout of vaccines had begun throughout the archipelago. Our data suggests that the presence of vaccines and vaccinated individuals in a Filipino community predicts vaccination intent. When directly asked if they were more willing to receive a vaccination than six months prior, 92.26% agreed to some extent that they were indeed more willing. Finally, despite the changes in the numbers of respondents who were more open to the COVID-19 vaccines, there were no significant changes in the predictive power of our Health Belief Model (HBM) constructs. For the most part, the HBM factors that predicted vaccination intent in our earlier study also predicted vaccination intent in this current study.