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. 2022 Oct 20;2(10):e0001204.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001204. eCollection 2022.

Variations in vaccination uptake: COVID-19 vaccination rates in Swedish municipalities

Elis Carlberg Larsson  1 , Emanuel Wittberg  1   2 , Susanne Wallman Lundåsen  2
Affiliations

Variations in vaccination uptake: COVID-19 vaccination rates in Swedish municipalities

Elis Carlberg Larsson et al. PLOS Glob Public Health. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Facing the threat of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines are important for limiting the spread and consequences of the pandemic. In this study, we provide a descriptive overview of the within-country variations of vaccine rates by examining to what extent voter turnout, support for an anti-establishment political party (Sweden Democrats), presence of first-generation immigrants, and Evangelical religiosity are associated with the within-country variation in vaccine uptake rates. We use official register data for municipality-level vaccine rates and municipality-level regressions with regional fixed effects. Our analyses show that vaccine uptake, on average, is lower in municipalities where the anti-establishment political party Sweden Democrats has higher vote shares and where a larger share of the population is first-generation immigrants. We discuss that potential explanations for these associations between vote shares for an anti-establishment party and shares of first-generation immigrants could be lower levels of trust in institutions and language barriers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Map of Sweden where municipalities are colored based on age-adjusted vaccination rates (in %).
Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Public Health Agency. Map layer: SWEREF99 (https://www.lantmateriet.se/oppnadata).
Fig 2
Fig 2. Predicted vaccination rates for municipalities with various levels of support for the SD.
Gray dots are observed values.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Predicted vaccination rates for municipalities with varying degrees of inhabitants born outside Sweden.
A) Predicted vaccination rates and the proportion of all immigrants born outside Sweden. B) Predicted vaccination rates and the proportion of all immigrants born outside Europe. C) Predicted vaccination rates and the proportion of all immigrants born in Europe. Gray dots are observed values.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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