A study undertaken to understand the reasons for lack of vaccine confidence and other challenges to COVID-19 vaccination faced by communities in urban slums has found that low digital literacy, misinformation/rumours and fear of adverse effects are the main barriers.
The study titled “Predictors of COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence: Findings from Slums of Four Major Metro Cities of India” has been recently published in “Vaccines”, a medical journal.
Authored by a team of researchers comprising Satyanarayana Tamysetty, Giridhara R Babu, Biswamitra Sahu among others, the study was conducted in four slums in Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.
“The key barriers from our study findings are the inability to spare time due to their economic vulnerability, low digital literacy, misinformation/rumours, inaccessibility to old age groups, inconvenient timing, and fear of adverse effects,” said Dr Satyanarayana Tamysetty.
He said the researchers studied 296 subjects from the four slums in April-May 2021. First, a quantitative survey of convenience was undertaken from a sample of 50 subjects from the four slums who had not taken any dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Secondly, five subjects who had taken at least one dose of the vaccine in each of the four cities were interviewed to understand the factors that contributed to the positive behaviour. Finally, an in-depth interview of three key informants in each city on vaccination patterns in the communities was conducted, he explained.
“Vaccine hesitancy was examined while looking at contextual influences dealing with socioeconomic, environmental, political, cultural, economic and institutional factors,” said Dr Tamysetty, who is the Director of Health Innovations Lab at the Indian Institute of Public Health in Bengaluru.
“There is a need for concerted national, state and local level efforts to understand, analyse and address vaccine confidence at regular intervals. Although the situation has improved now, these factors still hold good,” he said.
According to the findings, the prime reasons for not getting vaccinated are complications and/or futility of getting vaccinated, uncertainty of getting vaccine, fear of getting vaccinated, and lack of understanding of safety of vaccine and adverse events following immunisation (AEFI).
“Around one-fifth of respondents from Delhi and Mumbai were dependent on others/families in deciding to vaccinate, whereas it was less than 10% each in Bengaluru and Kolkata. Similar proportions reported dependence on family/others to register in the four cities. The inability to spare a day from work was the most frequent reason in Bengaluru and Delhi (13%). Vaccination centres being stated as too far were reported more in Delhi (9.3%). Physical disability was an issue in Bengaluru (10.2%), Mumbai (<10%) and Kolkata (8%),” according to the study.
