Acceso usuarios
Argentina
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of reducing both real and perceived barriers to a vaccination campaign. Health systems worldwide faced delays in vaccination efforts due to people's preference for specific vaccine brands which caused appointment cancellations or delays. Previous literature showed that consumers choose products that are congruent with their self-concept, which includes their political affiliation.Objectives: Our objective is to test whether partisanship influences perceptions and preferences for COVID-19 vaccine brands and also, vaccination campaigns. Methods: We collected survey data from Argentina (N = 432; Mage= 44.6). To address brand perceptions, a two-way Analysis of Variance mixed-model (ANOVA) where the vaccine’s brand origin (western vs. eastern) and partisanship (FT vs. JxC) were the independent variables, and perception (effectiveness or safety) was the dependent variable.As a proxy for preference, a chi-square test was performed to determine whether the proportion of participants who report they would switch brands if they could was equal between the two parties.Third, we ran several ANOVAs where political affiliation was the independent variable and campaign support questions (e.g. ease to get an appointment) were the dependent variables.Results: We found that supporters of the ruling party, which had strong ties with Eastern countries such as Russia, perceived Eastern vaccine brands (e.g., Sputnik V) to be more effective and safer than Western ones (e.g., Pfizer) whereas the contrary was true for supporters of the opposition. Also, supporters of the opposing party were more likely to wish to hypothetically switch vaccines, to delay their appointment in case of not receiving their preferred brand, and to disapprove of their local vaccination campaign.Discussion: Our results demonstrate that political party affiliation biases perceptions of both vaccine brands’ quality and vaccination campaign effectiveness. Policy makers should take this into account when planning vaccination campaigns.
