Determinants of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance in West Papua, Indonesia

Abstract

BACKGROUND: A COVID-19 vaccine is available but acceptance in the community is still low. One of the causes of this is information, that is, lacking and cannot be understood by the community because it is not specific to the context of geography, culture, and sociodemography. AIM: The aim of this research is to understand the people’s desire for the COVID-19 vaccine in West Papua, Indonesia. METHODS: A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted using a snowball sampling strategy under a very limited environment. Questionnaires were designed and sent to study participants through social media forms. Study participants were recruited throughout West Papua. The main determinants predicting vaccine acceptance among respondents were modeled using logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: A total of 314 participants were willing to take the survey. Of the 314 participants, we found that education level, knowledge, and fear were the main factors predicting acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine, respectively (p-value; 0.019, 0.018, and 0.031). CONCLUSIONS: Sociodemographic determinants related to COVID-19 vaccination to develop new effective interventions to increase information stability and identify key factors, health education interventions that are appropriate for the language, culture, and socioeconomics can help increase the uptake of global vaccination programs to cope with the future pandemics.