COVID-19 Vaccination “Spillover” Effects onto Post-pandemic Vaccine Hesitancy

• In Event: The Politics of Pandemic Response and the Opportunities for Health Policy Reform

Abstract

Even amid the unprecedented public health challenges attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, opposition to vaccinating against the novel coronavirus has been both prevalent and politically contentious in American public life. In this paper, we theorize that negative attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination might "spillover" to shape confidence and participation in post-pandemic vaccination programs for years to come. In a nationally representative longitudinal survey of American adults across 2021 we find that -- consistent with our theoretical expectations -- people who opted to forego COVID-19 vaccination, who are more hesitant toward the COVID-19 vaccine, who endorse COVID-19 misinformation, and who oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates, subsequently tended to become more negative toward childhood vaccination mandates and toward elective adulthood vaccines. In a separate series of cross-sectional surveys, we also show that these findings extend to the rejection of vaccines that are still in development (e.g., Alzheimer's and personalized cancer vaccines), which highlights both the substantive scope and robustness (i.e., because these vaccines are still in development, attitudes toward them cannot possibly be confounded by personal vaccination experiences) of COVID vaccination spillover effects. Interestingly, while we find that vaccine spillover effects are more common on the ideological right, both the longitudinal and cross-sectional data suggest that those who hold (or come to hold) negative views toward COVID-19 vaccination are equally likely to express opposition to downstream vaccination programs, irrespective of partisan persuasion. We conclude by discussing how Americans' personal, and often deeply political, experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic may shape public health outcomes for years to come. We also consider how strategic political health communication might attempt to encourage vaccine uptake in the future.

Authors

• Kristin Kay Lunz Trujillo, University of South Carolina

• Matt Motta, Boston University School of Public Health