Individual Factors Influencing the Public’s Perceptions About the Importance of COVID-19 Immunity Certificates in the United Kingdom: Cross-sectional Web-based Questionnaire Survey

Abstract

Background: Understanding how perceptions around immunity certificates are influenced by individual characteristics is important to inform evidence-based policy making and implementation strategies for services around immunity and vaccine certification. Objective: This study aimed to assess what were the main individual factors influencing people’s perception of the importance of using COVID-19 immunity certificates, including health beliefs about COVID-19, vaccination views, sociodemographics, and lifestyle factors. Methods: A cross-sectional web-based survey with a nationally representative sample in the United Kingdom was conducted on August 3, 2021. Responses were collected and analyzed from 534 participants, aged 18 years and older, who were residents of the United Kingdom. The primary outcome measure (dependent variable) was the participants’ perceived importance of using immunity certificates, computed as an index of 6 items. The following individual drivers were used as the independent variables: (1) personal beliefs about COVID-19 (using constructs adapted from the Health Belief Model), (2) personal views on vaccination, (3) willingness to share immunity status with service providers, and (4) variables related to respondents’ lifestyle and sociodemographic characteristics. Results: The perceived importance of immunity certificates was higher among respondents who felt that contracting COVID-19 would have a severe negative impact on their health (β=0.2564; P