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. 2023 Jun 23;41(28):4092-4105.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.05.044. Epub 2023 May 29.

Understanding the role of personal experiences and contextual variables in shaping risk reduction preferences

Manuel Barrientos  1 , Felipe Vásquez-Lavin  2 , Constanza Rosales  3 , Luna Bratti  4
Affiliations

Understanding the role of personal experiences and contextual variables in shaping risk reduction preferences

Manuel Barrientos et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

This article explores how preferences for risk reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic are influenced by personal experiences and contextual variables such as having a close friend or relative who has been infected by the virus (closeness), the severity of the illness (severity), people's own perceptions of being in a risky group (risk group), change in employment status due to the pandemic (employment situation), and vaccination status (vaccination status and altruistic vaccination). We conducted a choice experiment (CE) in Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica. The attributes of the experiment were risk reduction, latency, and cost. Then, we estimated a mixed logit model to capture preference heterogeneity across the countries. The attributes presented in the CE were statistically significant, with the expected sign in each country. The variables closeness and employment situation presented homogeneous behavior in each country; however, severity, risk group, and vaccination status showed mixed results. We found that preferences were more heterogeneous for the attributes of the CE than for the personal experiences and contextual variables. Understanding the impact of these variables is essential for generating more effective risk reduction policies. For instance, methodologies such as the value of statistical life base their calculations on society's valuation of risk reduction. We provide evidence that the preferences for risk reduction vary due to the everyday situations that individuals face in the context of the pandemic. The latter may cause distortions in the values used to evaluate policies aimed at mitigating the outbreak.

Keywords: COVID-19; Discrete choice experiment; Latin America; Personal experience and contextual variables.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Choice set example.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Panel A and B: Covid-19 weekly cases and deaths per million inhabitants. Panel C and D: Covid-19 weekly vaccinations per hundred inhabitants.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
COVID-19-related cases question flow.
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See this image and copyright information in PMC

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