Analysis of Socio-demographic, Economic and Individual Reasons for COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy in Ecuador: A Nationwide Longitudinal Study

Abstract

The current outbreak of SARS-Cov-2, a virus responsible for COVID-19, has infected millions and caused a soaring death toll worldwide. Vaccination represents a powerful tool in our fight against the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Ecuador is one of the Latin American countries most impacted by COVID-19. Despite free COVID-19 vaccines, Ecuadorians still hesitate to get vaccinated. A multivariate binary logistic regression was used to analyze data from the Ecuadorian National Institute of Statistics and Censuses. This study investigated socio-demographics, economic, and individual reasons associated with a person having "no intention" to receive COVID-19 vaccine across the study period of October 2021 to March 2022. The survey revealed an increase of unvaccinated people having no intention of COVID-19 vaccination from 57.4% (October-December 2021) to 72.9% (January-March 2022). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was dependent on factors like sex, age and ethnicity. Socio-economic characteristics and education level were not found to be statistically significant in lack of vaccine intention, but most vaccination hesitancy was due to distrust in the COVID-19 vaccine. People who believed that the vaccine could be unsafe because of possible side effects represented half of the surveyed participants, a proportion that barely diminished during the progress of the vaccination campaign across October-December 2021 (57.04%) and January-March 2022 (49.59%) periods. People who did not believe that the vaccine was effective enough increased from 11.47 to 18.46%. Misbeliefs about effectiveness and safety of vaccines should be considered in the implementation of public health initiatives of communication, education and intervention to improve vaccination campaigns.

Keywords: COVID-19; sociodemographic factors; sociological factors; surveys and questionnaires; vaccination hesitancy.