Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May 25;13(1):8441.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-34244-2.

COVID-19 vaccination, risk-compensatory behaviours, and contacts in the UK

John Buckell  1   2   3 , Joel Jones  4 , Philippa C Matthews  5   6   7 , Sir Ian Diamond  4 , Emma Rourke  4 , Ruth Studley  4 , Duncan Cook  4 , Ann Sarah Walker  8   9   10   11 , Koen B Pouwels  12   10 ; COVID-19 Infection Survey Team
Collaborators, Affiliations

COVID-19 vaccination, risk-compensatory behaviours, and contacts in the UK

John Buckell et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The physiological effects of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) are well documented, yet the behavioural effects not well known. Risk compensation suggests that gains in personal safety, as a result of vaccination, are offset by increases in risky behaviour, such as socialising, commuting and working outside the home. This is potentially important because transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is driven by contacts, which could be amplified by vaccine-related risk compensation. Here, we show that behaviours were overall unrelated to personal vaccination, but-adjusting for variation in mitigation policies-were responsive to the level of vaccination in the wider population: individuals in the UK were risk compensating when rates of vaccination were rising. This effect was observed across four nations of the UK, each of which varied policies autonomously.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Probabilities of behavioural outcomes for individuals aged 18–64y by time from first vaccination, first dose. Top left (A): past 7-day reported physical, outside of household contacts; bottom left (B) past 7-day reported socially-distanced, outside of household contacts; top right (C) past 7-day reported home visits; bottom right (Panel D): past 7-day reported work outcomes for those that are working or in education. Dotted line shows day of own first vaccination. “18 or under”, “18 to 69” and “over 70” denote the ages of the people with whom individuals in the sample had contact.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Probabilities of behavioural outcomes for unvaccinated individuals aged 18–64y by time to vaccination of the first vulnerable person in the household, first dose. Top left (A): past 7-day reported physical, outside of household contacts; bottom left (B): past 7-day reported socially-distanced, outside of household contacts; top right (C): past 7-day reported home visits; bottom right (D): past 7-day reported work outcomes for those that are working or in education. Dotted line shows day of own first vaccination. “18 or under”, “18 to 69” and “over 70” denote the ages of the people with whom individuals in the sample had contact.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Percentage population SARS-CoV-2 vaccine uptake (first dose) over time during 2021 in England and Wales (split by region in England). Source: UK government official statistics, 2021a.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Probabilities of behavioural outcomes by population level vaccination %, first dose. Top left (A): past 7-day reported physical, outside of household contacts; bottom left (B): past 7-day reported socially-distanced, outside of household contacts; top right (C): past 7-day reported home visits; bottom right (D): past 7-day reported work outcomes for those that are working or in education. “18 or under”, “18 to 69” and “over 70” denote the ages of the people with whom that individuals in the sample had contact.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Vaccination rate among over-70s in England and Scotland versus vaccination rates in younger adults (source: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/download). Data were unavailable for Northern Ireland and Wales.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. UK government, 2021a. UK coronavirus dashboard. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations. Accessed 25/10/2021.
    1. Chemaitelly H, et al. mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants and severe COVID-19 disease in Qatar. Nat. Med. 2021;27(9):1614–1621. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01446-y. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Chung H, S., et al. Effectiveness of BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 covid-19 vaccines against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe covid-19 outcomes in Ontario, Canada: Test negative design study. BMJ. 2021;374:n1943. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n1943. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Imai NA, et al. Interpreting estimates of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine efficacy and effectiveness to inform simulation studies of vaccine impact: A systematic review. Wellcome Open Res. 2021;6(185):66.
    1. Lopez Bernal JN, et al. Effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines on covid-19 related symptoms, hospital admissions, and mortality in older adults in England: Test negative case-control study. BMJ. 2021;373:n1088. doi: 10.1136/bmj.n1088. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Substances