JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 10, 2025

UNICEF survey:Vaccine hesitancy among young and unemployed

by

1272 days ago
20220114
FILE - A dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is prepared at Lurie Children's hospital, Nov. 5, 2021, in Chicago. The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in close to record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - A dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is prepared at Lurie Children's hospital, Nov. 5, 2021, in Chicago. The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in close to record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

What do vac­cine-hes­i­tant peo­ple in six Caribbean is­lands sur­veyed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Chil­dren Emer­gency Fund (UNICEF) have in com­mon?

Most are young, un­em­ployed and have a max ed­u­ca­tion lev­el of sec­ondary school.

The sur­vey find­ings im­plied that those ed­u­cat­ed to a high­er lev­el were more like­ly to be vac­ci­nat­ed.

T&T scored 4.4 of 10 in a Vac­cine Hes­i­tan­cy In­dex, tied with Grena­da, with one, the least hes­i­tant and 10, the most.

The sur­vey showed that T&T had an un­vac­ci­nat­ed pop­u­la­tion of 54 per cent, beat­en on­ly by Bar­ba­dos with 49 per cent. It al­so showed that no one could per­suade 48 per cent of re­spon­dents to change their minds.

The 48 per cent is a fig­ure Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh is con­cerned about af­ter lis­ten­ing to the launch of the COVID-19 Vac­cine Hes­i­tan­cy Sur­vey Re­port 2021 done by the  Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Re­search Ser­vices (CADRES) for UNICEF and spon­sored by the Unit­ed States Agency In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID).

CADRES sur­veyed peo­ple in T&T, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines be­tween Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber 2021. 

Di­rec­tor of Cadres Pe­ter Wick­ham said un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple were pri­mar­i­ly ages 18 to 30. Wick­ham said they were pre­sum­ably less con­cerned about the risk of be­ing un­vac­ci­nat­ed. They were al­so more like­ly to be un­em­ployed, ei­ther vol­un­tar­i­ly or oth­er­wise.

The re­port states that the ab­sence of the need or de­sire to en­ter an in­sti­tu­tion­alised en­vi­ron­ment may cre­ate a re­luc­tance to vac­ci­nate. An­oth­er in­flu­ence of vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy was pol­i­tics, as ev­i­dence around the re­gion shows that un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple were more like­ly to op­pose the gov­ern­ment. 

Re­spon­dents said they did not trust the vac­cines be­cause they be­lieved re­searchers de­vel­oped them too quick­ly or did not know the in­gre­di­ents and wor­ried about pos­si­ble side ef­fects. Some said it was their choice not to vac­ci­nate. 

“These views have not changed over time. In­deed, a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion is now even less in­clined to take a vac­cine, and this pat­tern is con­sis­tent across all the coun­tries with the high­est per­cent­age in Trinidad & To­ba­go and the low­est in Grena­da,” the re­port stat­ed.

An­oth­er rea­son for not tak­ing a vac­cine was med­ical ad­vice sug­gest­ing that peo­ple should not.

How­ev­er, close to two-thirds of re­spon­dents did not con­sult a doc­tor be­fore de­cid­ing against vac­ci­na­tion. Most vac­cine-hes­i­tant re­spon­dents said they got their in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia and per­son­al in­ter­net re­search. 

“In Do­mini­ca and Trinidad & To­ba­go, re­spon­dents said they could be helped by the in­for­ma­tion on the num­bers of peo­ple who got sick/died and on the dif­fer­ent vac­cines avail­able. The pre­ferred modes of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons are tele­vi­sion/ca­ble and What­sApp.”

While the use of per­son­al­i­ties in vac­cine cam­paigns helped re­lay in­for­ma­tion, it dif­fered for the vac­cine-hes­i­tant in T&T and Bar­ba­dos. Many found it un­help­ful or dis­tract­ing. Re­li­gious lead­ers, fam­i­ly and friends were not the key in­flu­encers in any coun­try. 

What could change the minds of un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple were more sci­en­tif­ic or med­ical in­for­ma­tion, fol­lowed by a man­date on ac­count of the need to trav­el, work or see loved ones die. How­ev­er, some re­spon­dents re­port­ed that noth­ing could con­vince them, even if they got in­for­ma­tion on the side ef­fects and vac­cine ef­fi­ca­cy.

Us­ing the Dif­fu­sion of In­no­va­tion The­o­ry, Deyals­ingh said T&T al­ready vac­ci­nat­ed the in­no­va­tors, ear­ly adopters and ear­ly ma­jor­i­ty. He said the coun­try was now go­ing af­ter the late ma­jor­i­ty.

He said the re­port would now feed in­to the Gov­ern­ment’s Be­hav­iour Change Man­age­ment Pro­gramme. The pro­gramme is a part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences to de­vel­op a Be­hav­iour Change Mod­i­fi­ca­tion Process. 

—Kevon Felmine


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored