Investigating how historical legacies of militarized violence can motivate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Evidence from global dyadic survey

Background

In almost all countries, COVID-19 vaccines available for public use are produced outside of that country. Consistent with recent social science research, we hypothesize that legacies of violent conflict from vaccine-producing against vaccine-consuming countries may motivate vaccine hesitancy among people in targeted countries that purchase vaccines produced by the erstwhile aggressor.

Methods

Our analyses draw on data from the Correlates of War project and a large, representative survey of 18,291 adults that asked respondents in 16 countries to self-report their attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines originating from 12 potential vaccine-producing countries in December 2020 (184 country-pairs, 208,422 ratings). For the main analysis, we used random-effect linear probability models and turned to Bayesian Model Averaging to probe the robustness of the main findings.

Results

We demonstrate that elevated levels of historical violence between vaccine-producing and vaccine-consuming countries are associated with increased negative feelings toward a COVID-19 vaccine produced by the vaccine producer.

Conclusion

Global vaccine hesitancy may result, at least in part, from public perceptions of historical conflict between vaccine-producing and vaccine-consuming countries. These results can help public health practitioners better preempt and adjust for cross-national vaccine resistance.