Evaluation of the effectiveness of social mobilization for vaccination among healthcare and non-healthcare workers in emergency situations

Abstract

Emergency vaccination programs face unique challenges requiring effective social mobilization strategies, yet comprehensive evaluations of mobilization effectiveness across population settings and temporal phases remain limited. This cross-sectional study conducted from September 2024 to January 2025 included 3048 healthcare workers and 3722 non-healthcare workers in China using multi-stage stratified sampling across eastern, central, and western regions. Participants retrospectively evaluated vaccination attitudes across three COVID-19 vaccination phases: pre-mobilization (2020), in-mobilization (2021-2022), and post-mobilization (2023). Healthcare workers showed increased vaccination willingness in-mobilization (53.5% to 56.2%, p < 0.05), while non-healthcare workers demonstrated sustained increases from 45.1% to 48.1% and 46.5% (p < 0.05). In-mobilization, collective responsibility remained the strongest predictor for healthcare workers (OR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.85-3.89), while social identity emerged for non-healthcare workers (OR = 3.24, 95% CI: 2.10-4.99). These findings suggest that association between social mobilization and vaccination willingness depends on population-specific intervention strategies acknowledging distinct motivational frameworks and temporal dynamics in emergency vaccination contexts.