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. 2021 Sep 21;9(9):1049.
doi: 10.3390/vaccines9091049.

Intent to Vaccinate SARS-CoV-2 Infected Children in US Households: A Survey

Mehgan Teherani  1 , Samridhi Banskota  2 , Andres Camacho-Gonzalez  1 , Alison G C Smith  2 , Evan J Anderson  1 , Carol M Kao  3 , Charles Crepy D'Orleans  2 , Andi L Shane  1 , Austin Lu  2 , Preeti Jaggi  1
Affiliations

Intent to Vaccinate SARS-CoV-2 Infected Children in US Households: A Survey

Mehgan Teherani et al. Vaccines (Basel). .

Abstract

A paucity of data exists evaluating a guardian's intent to vaccinate their child against COVID-19 in the United States. We administered 102 first (April-November 2020) and 45 second (December-January 2020-2021) surveys to guardians of children (<18 years) who had a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and assessed their intent to give a COVID-19 vaccine to their child, when one becomes available. The first and second surveys of the same cohort of guardians were conducted before and following the press releases detailing the adult Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Phase 3 results. Both surveys included an intent-to-vaccinate question using the subjective language of "if a safe and effective vaccine" became available, and a second question was added to second surveys using the objective language of "would prevent 19 of 20 people from getting disease". When using subjective language, 24 of 45 (53%) guardians endorsed vaccine administration for their children in the first survey, which decreased to 21 (46%) in the second survey. When adding objective language, acceptance of vaccination increased to 31 (69%, p = 0.03). Common reasons for declining vaccination were concerns about adverse effects and/or vaccine safety. Providing additional facts on vaccine efficacy increased vaccine acceptance. Evidence-based strategies are needed to increase pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; children; intent-to-vaccinate; mRNA; pediatrics; vaccine hesitancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Anderson has received personal fees from Pfizer, Sanofi Pasteur, and Medscape for consulting, and his institution receives funds to conduct clinical research unrelated to this manuscript from MedImmune, Regeneron, PaxVax, Pfizer, GSK, Merck, Sanofi Pasteur, Janssen, and Micron. He also serves on a safety monitoring board for Kentucky BioProcessing, Inc. and Sanofi Pasteur. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results. The other authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Guardian vaccine acceptability on first and second surveys.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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