Willingness to take COVID-19 vaccination in low-income countries: Evidence from Ethiopia

Christoph Strupat*, Zemzem Shigute, Arjun S. Bedi, Matthias Rieger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)
39 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background In low-income countries, vaccination campaigns are lagging, and evidence on vaccine acceptance, a crucial public health planning input, remains scant. This is the first study that reports willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines and its socio-demographic correlates in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country. Methods The analysis is based on a nationally representative survey data of 2,317 households conducted in the informal economy in November 2020. It employs two logistic regression models where the two outcome variables are (i) a household head's willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine or not, and (ii) if yes if they would also hypothetically pay (an unspecified amount) for it or not. Predictors include age, gender, education, marital status, income category, health insurance coverage, sickness due to COVID-19, chronic illness, trust in government, prior participation in voluntary activities, urban residence. Results Willingness to take the vaccine was high (88%) and significantly associated with COVID-19 cases in the family, trust in government and pro-social behavior. All other predictors such as gender, education, income, health insurance, chronic illness, urban residence did not significantly predict vaccine willingness at the 5% level. Among those willing to take the vaccine, 33% also answered that they would hypothetically pay (an unspecified amount) for it, an answer that is significantly associated with trust in government, health insurance coverage and income. Conclusion The results highlight both opportunities and challenges. There is little evidence of vaccine hesitancy in Ethiopia among household heads operating in the informal economy. The role played by trust in government and pro-social behavior in motivating this outcome suggests that policy makers need to consider these factors in the planning of COVID-19 vaccine campaigns in order to foster vaccine uptake. At the same time, as the willingness to hypothetically pay for a COVID-19 vaccine seems to be small, fairly-priced vaccines along with financial support are also needed to ensure further uptake of COVID-19 vaccines.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere0264633
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume17
Issue number3 March
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding:
The survey was funded by the FriedrichEbert Foundation (FES) and the German Ministry
for Economic Cooperation and Development
(BMZ). The funders had no role in study design

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Strupat et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Research programs

  • ISS-DE

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Willingness to take COVID-19 vaccination in low-income countries: Evidence from Ethiopia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this