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The French public's attitudes to a future COVID-19 vaccine: The politicization of a public health issue

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  • Ward, Jeremy K.
  • Alleaume, Caroline
  • Peretti-Watel, Patrick

Abstract

As Covid-19 spreads across the world, governments turn a hopeful eye towards research and development of a vaccine against this new disease. But it is one thing to make a vaccine available, and it is quite another to convince the public to take the shot, as the precedent of the 2009 H1N1 influenza illustrated. In this paper, we present the results of four online surveys conducted in April 2020 in representative samples of the French population 18 years of age and over (N = 5018). These surveys were conducted during a period when the French population was on lockdown and the daily number of deaths attributed to the virus reached its peak. We found that if a vaccine against the new coronavirus became available, almost a quarter of respondents would not use it. We also found that attitudes to this vaccine were correlated significantly with political partisanship and engagement with the political system. Attitudes towards this future vaccine did not follow the traditional mapping of political attitudes along a Left-Right axis. The rift seems to be between people who feel close to governing parties (Centre, Left and Right) on the one hand, and, on the other, people who feel close to Far-Left and Far-Right parties as well as people who do not feel close to any party. We draw on the French sociological literature on ordinary attitudes to politics to discuss our results as well as the cultural pathways via which political beliefs can affect perceptions of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Ward, Jeremy K. & Alleaume, Caroline & Peretti-Watel, Patrick, 2020. "The French public's attitudes to a future COVID-19 vaccine: The politicization of a public health issue," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:265:y:2020:i:c:s027795362030633x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113414
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ward, Jeremy K., 2016. "Rethinking the antivaccine movement concept: A case study of public criticism of the swine flu vaccine’s safety in France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 48-57.
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    3. Philip Ball, 2020. "Anti-vaccine movement could undermine efforts to end coronavirus pandemic, researchers warn," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7808), pages 251-251, May.
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    4. Marc Debus & Jale Tosun, 2021. "Political ideology and vaccination willingness: implications for policy design," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(3), pages 477-491, September.
    5. van Mulukom, Valerie & Pummerer, Lotte J. & Alper, Sinan & Bai, Hui & Čavojová, Vladimíra & Farias, Jessica & Kay, Cameron S. & Lazarevic, Ljiljana B. & Lobato, Emilio J.C. & Marinthe, Gaëlle & Pavela, 2022. "Antecedents and consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    6. Schultz, Émilien & Mancini, Julien & Ward, Jeremy K., 2023. "What does the French public consider to be a conflict of interest for medical researchers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 327(C).
    7. Yuen, Vera W.H., 2023. "The efficacy of health experts’ communication in inducing support for COVID-19 measures and effect on trustworthiness: A survey in Hong Kong," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).
    8. Greyling, Talita & Rossouw, Stephanié, 2024. "Vaccination uptake, happiness and emotions: using a supervised machine learning approach," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1482, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    9. Hess, Stephane & Lancsar, Emily & Mariel, Petr & Meyerhoff, Jürgen & Song, Fangqing & van den Broek-Altenburg, Eline & Alaba, Olufunke A. & Amaris, Gloria & Arellana, Julián & Basso, Leonardo J. & Ben, 2022. "The path towards herd immunity: Predicting COVID-19 vaccination uptake through results from a stated choice study across six continents," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    10. Backhaus, Insa & Hoven, Hanno & Kawachi, Ichiro, 2023. "Far-right political ideology and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Multilevel analysis of 21 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 335(C).
    11. Becchetti, Leonardo & Candio, Paolo & Salustri, Francesco, 2021. "Vaccine uptake and constrained decision making: The case of Covid-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    12. François, Abel & Gergaud, Olivier & Noury, Abdul, 2023. "Can health passport overcome political hurdles to COVID-19 vaccination?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    13. Awijen, Haithem & Ben Zaied, Younes & Nguyen, Duc Khuong, 2022. "Covid-19 vaccination, fear and anxiety: Evidence from Google search trends," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    14. Nathalie Bajos & Alexis Spire & Léna Silberzan & Antoine Sireyjol & Florence Jusot & Laurence Meyer & Jeanna-Eve Franck & Josiane Warszawski, 2022. "When Lack of Trust in the Government and in Scientists Reinforces Social Inequalities in Vaccination Against COVID-19," Post-Print hal-03959619, HAL.
    15. Željko Pavić & Emma Kovačević & Adrijana Šuljok, 2023. "Health literacy, religiosity, and political identification as predictors of vaccination conspiracy beliefs: a test of the deficit and contextual models," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    16. Galetsi, Panagiota & Katsaliaki, Korina & Kumar, Sameer, 2022. "The medical and societal impact of big data analytics and artificial intelligence applications in combating pandemics: A review focused on Covid-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    17. Mendolia, Silvia & Walker, Ian, 2023. "COVID-19 vaccination intentions and subsequent uptake: An analysis of the role of marginalisation in society using British longitudinal data," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    18. Vincenzo Carrieri & Raffele Lagravinese & Giuliano Resce, 2021. "Predicting vaccine hesitancy from area‐level indicators: A machine learning approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3248-3256, December.
    19. Choi, Yongjin & Fox, Ashley M., 2022. "Mistrust in public health institutions is a stronger predictor of vaccine hesitancy and uptake than Trust in Trump," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    20. Wu, Jian & Shen, Zhanlei & Li, Quanman & Tarimo, Clifford Silver & Wang, Meiyun & Gu, Jianqin & Wei, Wei & Zhang, Xinyu & Huang, Yanli & Ma, Mingze & Xu, Dongyang & Ojangba, Theodora & Miao, Yudong, 2023. "How urban versus rural residency relates to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A large-scale national Chinese study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    21. Ward, Jeremy K. & Gauna, Fatima & Deml, Michael J. & MacKendrick, Norah & Peretti-Watel, Patrick, 2023. "Diversity of attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and vaccines: A representative cross-sectional study in France," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).

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