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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1480419
This article is part of the Research Topic Vaccine Education and Promotion View all 27 articles

Examining psychological correlates of vaccine hesitancy: A comparative study between the US and Israel

Provisionally accepted
Nicolle Simonovic Nicolle Simonovic 1*Anat Gesser-Edelsburg Anat Gesser-Edelsburg 1Jennifer Taber Jennifer Taber 2
  • 1 University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
  • 2 Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    It is important to identify psychological correlates of vaccine hesitancy, including among people not from the United States (U.S.). College students were recruited between March-June 2023 in the US (n=330, Mage=20.21, 79.5% female) and in Israel (n=204, Mage=23.45, 92.6% female) to complete a cross-sectional survey on vaccine attitudes, emotions, and behavior. A 2 (Nation: US, Israel) x 2 (Vaccine Status: Vaccinated, Unvaccinated) factorial design was used. Individual ANCOVA analyses controlling for sociodemographic factors were conducted to test main effects of nation and vaccine status, and their interaction, across various psychological correlates of health behavior. Consistent with hypotheses, unvaccinated (vs. vaccinated) individuals reported higher perceived ambiguity, reactance, and anger as well as perceived lower susceptibility, severity, worry, positive emotion, and intentions to vaccinate. Contrary to hypotheses, unvaccinated individuals reported greater fear. Israeli (vs. American) participants reported higher perceived ambiguity, worry, fear, and anger, as well as lower perceived severity. Vaccinated Americans reported higher intentions to vaccinate again in the future (M= 2.89, SE = 0.08) compared to vaccinated Israelis (M=2.36, SE= 0.08). However, unvaccinated Americans reported lower intentions to vaccinate (M= 1.80, SE= 0.15) than unvaccinated Israelis (M= 1.95, SE= 0.21). Findings provide insight into correlates to target for vaccine promotion and emphasize the need for cultural tailoring.

    Keywords: Vaccine hesitancy, Health Behavior, Risk Perception, Emotions, ambiguity, Intentions

    Received: 13 Aug 2024; Accepted: 25 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Simonovic, Gesser-Edelsburg and Taber. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Nicolle Simonovic, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

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