Time trends, factors associated with, and reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A massive online survey of US adults from January-May 2021

• Published in: PloS one 2021-12, Vol.16 (12), p.e0260731
• Main Authors: King, Wendy C, Rubinstein, Max, Reinhart, Alex, Mejia, Robin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Adults; Age; Age differences; Aged; Aggregate data; Biology and Life Sciences; Blood pressure; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - psychology; COVID-19 Vaccines; Data science; Demographics; Demography; Diabetes; Economic indicators; Education; Elections; Ethnicity; Ethnicity - psychology; Evaluation; Female; Gender; Geography; Health behavior; Hispanic people; Humans; Hypertension; Immunization; Influenza; Languages; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Middle Aged; Minority & ethnic groups; People and Places; Political factors; Politics; Polls & surveys; Presidential elections; Public health; Race; Research and Analysis Methods; Respondents; Risk analysis; Risk factors; SARS-CoV-2 - immunology; SARS-CoV-2 - pathogenicity; Secondary schools; Side effects; Social Sciences; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires; Time Factors; Trends; United States; Vaccination; Vaccination - trends; Vaccination Hesitancy - psychology; Vaccination Hesitancy - trends; Vaccines
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260731

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has become a leading barrier to increasing the US vaccination rate. To evaluate time trends in COVID-19 vaccine intent during the US vaccine rollout, and identify key factors related to and self-reported reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in May 2021. A COVID-19 survey was offered to US adult Facebook users in several languages yielding 5,088,772 qualifying responses from January 6 to May 31, 2021. Data was aggregated by month. Survey weights matched the sample to the age, gender, and state profile of the US population. Demographics, geographic factors, political/COVID-19 environment, health status, beliefs, and behaviors. "If a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 were offered to you today, would you choose to get vaccinated." Hesitant was defined as responding probably or definitely would not choose to get vaccinated (versus probably or definitely would, or already vaccinated). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy decreased by one-third from 25.4% (95%CI, 25.3, 25.5) in January to 16.6% (95% CI, 16.4, 16.7) in May, with relatively large decreases among participants with Black, Pacific Islander or Hispanic race/ethnicity and ≤high school education. Independent risk factors for vaccine hesitancy in May (N = 525,644) included younger age, non-Asian race, < 4 year college degree, living in a more rural county, living in a county with higher Trump vote share in the 2020 election, lack of worry about COVID-19, working outside the home, never intentionally avoiding contact with others, and no past-year flu vaccine. Differences in hesitancy by race/ethnicity varied by age (e.g., Black adults more hesitant than White adults