Barriers to influenza vaccination
Citation: Schmid P, Rauber D, Betsch C, Lidolt G, Denker ML. Barriers of influenza vaccination intention and behavior–a systematic review of influenza vaccine hesitancy. 2005–2016. PloS ONE. 2017;12(1):e0170550.
What is this? Some people are reluctant to receive vaccination, for example for influenza. Research into the reasons for this might provide useful information for policy makers planning vaccination programmes for COVID-19.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies of potential barriers to influenza vaccination. They restricted their searches to studies published in English or German between 1 January 2005 and 18 January 2016. They included 470 articles, most of which were from the Americas (199 articles) and Europe (176).
What was found: Psychological barriers to influenza vaccination include the potential benefits and harms associated with vaccination, perception that the individual risk of contracting influenza was low, lack of acknowledgement of the social benefits of vaccination, low pressure from others to get vaccinated, lack of perceived behavior control, negative attitudes towards vaccinations, not receiving the influenza vaccine in the past, suffering from influenza in the past and lack of knowledge about a vaccine.
Physical barriers to influenza vaccination include unhealthy lifestyle factors, low body mass and lack of pre-existing medical conditions.
Contextual barriers to influenza vaccination include difficulty of healthcare providers in acquiring vaccines, infrequent interaction with the healthcare system, lack of recommendation from a healthcare provider and living in a socioeconomically deprived area.
Sociodemographic barriers to influenza vaccination include living alone and being unmarried.
At the time of this review, the available evidence was inconclusive about the influence of age, gender and ethnicity on influenza vaccine uptake.
This summary was prepared by Joly Ghanawi, edited by Sydney Johnson and finalized by Mike Clarke.