Vaccination is considered one of the most important scientific advances of the 20th and 21st century. The impact is hard to exaggerate with vaccines being estimated to prevent 4-5 million deaths worldwide annually before the pandemic. The rapid development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines have saved further lives still and have proved to be a vital instrument in the fight against the pandemic, turning the tide of health and economic outcomes.
Prof. Heidi Larson and the Vaccine Confidence Project team compared vaccine confidence across the EU evaluated in 2022 to levels of vaccine confidence in both 2018 and 2020. Our study highlights that vaccine hesitancy as a complex and context specific challenge varies across time, place, sociodemographic characteristics, and vaccines.
The vaccine confidence was measured across the European Union using the Vaccine Confidence Index tool (VCI) developed by the Vaccine Confidence Project. The VCI is a set of survey items that measures confidence in vaccines generally as well as confidence towards specific vaccines and has been used to monitor and map vaccine confidence around the globe. A total of 25,143 members of the general public and 3,012 healthcare professionals were surveyed across the EU’s 27 Member States (EU-27) between March and August 2022.
In this VACCELERATE webinar, Heidi Larson will present the key findings of the State of Vaccine Confidence in the EU report, 2022.
