key: cord-0919612-2k5slnqk authors: Wirawan, Gede Benny Setia; Harjana, Ngakan Putu Anom; Nugrahani, Nur Wulan; Januraga, Pande Putu title: Health Beliefs and Socioeconomic Determinants of COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Acceptance: An Indonesian Cross-Sectional Study date: 2022-05-05 journal: Vaccines (Basel) DOI: 10.3390/vaccines10050724 sha: 8c42c170c26cc0178a0b07b3a46dd18a57875ebc doc_id: 919612 cord_uid: 2k5slnqk Introduction: The threat of new SARS-CoV-2 variants indicates the need to implement COVID-19 vaccine booster programs. The aim of this study was to identify the level of booster acceptance and its determinants. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in Jakarta and Bali, Indonesia. Booster acceptance was divided into three categories: non-acceptor, planned acceptor, and actual acceptor. The primary independent variables were health beliefs, media influence, and trust in authoritative sources. Other covariates included demographics, socioeconomic status, and COVID-19 history. A primary analysis was conducted through multinomial logistic regression. The effects of the hypothetical situations on booster acceptance were tested using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results: The final analysis included 2674 respondents with a booster acceptance rate of 56.3% (41.2% planned acceptors, 15.1% actual acceptors). Health beliefs, social media influence, and trust in authoritative information sources were identified as determinants for planned and actual booster acceptance. Socioeconomic status indicators were also identified as determinants for actual booster acceptance. Booster acceptance was increased in hypothetical scenarios involving booster requirements for work, travel, and accessing public places. Conclusions: Booster acceptance was found to be lower than the predicted primary vaccine acceptance prior to its launch. The acceleration of booster coverage requires strategies that leverage health beliefs and focus on people with a lower socioeconomic status. Two years of the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that its epidemiology is characterized by waves of surging new daily cases. Each wave often corresponded with the emergence of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant taking over as the dominant circulating variant of the virus [1] . The latest wave the world experienced occurred around December 2021 to March of 2022 and was caused by the Omicron B.1.1.529.1 (BA.1) variant of SARS-CoV-2. This wave was characterized by the decoupling of the infection incidence rate from the hospitalization and mortality rates of COVID-19 [2] . Other than the increased accessibility of COVID-19 tests, this pattern can be attributed to the much higher COVID-19 vaccine coverage at this time [2, 3] . At the beginning of the Omicron wave, around 50% of the world population had been fully vaccinated, compared to 6% at the beginning of the Delta wave [4, 5] . In Indonesia, around 40% of the population had been fully vaccinated at the beginning of the local Omicron wave in early January 2022, although this figure was not evenly distributed across the vast archipelagic nation [6] . Despite this gain in the latest wave, the worldwide community must not be complacent. New SARS-CoV-2 variants may still emerge in the future. Currently, there is a risk posed by a subvariant of Omicron known as variant B.1.1.529.2 (BA.2), which may become the dominant variant in the near future [7] . Vaccines remain the best hope to mitigate the risk from Omicron BA.2 and other new variants. Early preliminary studies showed that antibodies elicited by complete vaccination as well as prior COVID-19 infection showed comparable neutralizing potential against the BA.1 and BA.2 variants [8, 9] . However, there have been studies reporting lower neutralizing antibodies as early as 90 days after the administration of the second dose, which may lead to increased infection risk [10, 11] . A booster dose has been proposed as a solution to maintain an effective level of immunity in the population [12] . Nevertheless, there are several barriers to the implementation of this strategy. On the basic level, there are potential issues of global vaccine supply leading to inequality in access to vaccines [12] . On the demand side, the level of acceptance for a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose remains unclear. Studies in China and the United Kingdom showed that booster acceptance varied between 75.2% and 91.1% [13] [14] [15] . However, real-life data showed a much slower uptake of the booster. Data from the United States showed that booster coverage only amounted to 29.6% of the population after more than 6 months since it first became available in August 2021 [4] . Indonesia officially initiated its booster campaign on 12 January 2022, complementing the earlier booster dose administration for healthcare workers in November 2021. By late March 2022, booster coverage reached 10.43% of the target population [6] . However, this figure is not distributed evenly across the archipelago. Jakarta and Bali can be seen as the benchmark for vaccine acceptance in Indonesia, being the provinces with highest full vaccination coverage [6] . These regions are prioritized for vaccination and booster campaigns due to their international renown as well their status as designated ports of entry to Indonesia in the national plan to open the border after the pandemic. With vaccine hesitancy being a significant factor in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, it cannot simply be assumed that the acceptance level of a booster dose would be equal to that of the first and second doses. Identifying the level of booster acceptance and its determinants in these regions can help stakeholders be more informed on the demand-side barriers of the COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign. Available evidence suggests that health beliefs and trust affect the intention to accept the primary COVID-19 vaccine doses [16] . Meanwhile, there has also been evidence showing that socioeconomic status affects primary COVID-19 vaccine acceptance [17] . To our knowledge, there has been little to no studies evaluating whether the same factors affect the acceptance of a booster dose. Thus, this study was conducted to evaluate whether health beliefs, trust, and socioeconomic status were the determinants affecting the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine booster dose. Data were collected in the Jakarta and Bali provinces of Indonesia using an online survey platform. The data collection instrument was developed in December 2021 through to January 2022. Data collection was conducted during 6th to 16th February. The period in which this instrument was developed coincides with the development and initiation of the COVID-19 booster vaccine campaign in Indonesia, which officially kicked off on 12 January 2022. The booster doses administered were mostly heterologous, although the regulations allow for homologous booster doses in cases of inadequate supply [18] . Meanwhile, the data collection coincided with the initial increased daily cases of the Omicron prime wave. At the time of the survey, national daily new COVID-19 cases averaged at around 40,000. In Jakarta and Bali, the locations of this survey, the daily new cases averaged at around 13,000 and 1700, respectively. At the same time, national COVID-19 vaccine coverage at the initiation of the data collection reached around 90% of the targeted population for the first dose and around 65% for the second dose, although there were some disparities between provinces. Jakarta and Bali were among the provinces with the highest vaccine coverage. At the beginning of the survey period, full COVID-19 vaccination coverage in Jakarta and Bali were 121% and 102% of the targeted population, respectively [19] . These figures were over 100% due to the large proportion of unrecorded internal migrants living in these predominantly urban provinces. As these people were not recorded in the regional demographic databases, they were not included in the calculation of the target population for the vaccine and booster campaign, although they are still eligible to obtain their shot in Jakarta and Bali. This study is of a cross-sectional analytic design, employing the 3Cs model of vaccine hesitancy as its theoretical framework. The 3Cs include confidence, complacency, and convenience [20] . Health beliefs and trust were the primary independent variables in this study. These concepts fit quite neatly under the 3Cs model, where perceived threat corresponds with complacency, perceived benefits and harms correspond with confidence, and perceived barriers correspond with convenience [21] . Trust, meanwhile, can be seen as a modifying factor that affect health beliefs. Data collection was conducted in Jakarta and Bali by using an online survey with geolocation filtering. The minimum sample size for the proportion estimation was calculated to be 365, although there was an aim to include at least 2000 respondents in order to minimize biases from the online data collection [22] . The survey instrument was disseminated through a social media campaign. The campaign was conducted using paid ads on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The inclusion criteria were residents of Jakarta and Bali, proven by the geolocation feature on the online survey platform, aged ≥18 years old, and had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine of any type. Respondents were given small monetary incentives amounting to IDR 50,000 (around USD 3) as compensation for communication fees incurred to participate in the study. The primary variable of interest in this study was a respondent's acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose. This was measured via two questions: The first one asked whether the respondent had previously received a booster dose. Those who had already received a booster dose were categorized as 'actual acceptors'. Secondly, for respondents who had not yet accepted a booster dose, they were asked about their likelihood of receiving it as soon as they would be eligible. The response to the second question was given in the form of a 5-itemed Likert scale ranging from 'Would not accept' to 'Certainly would accept'. Those who answered 'Certainly' were categorized as 'planned acceptors' of a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, while the others were categorized as 'non-acceptors'. Further, non-acceptors were also asked about their acceptance of a booster dose in several hypothetical situations, including the emergence of new variants, a surge in new cases or mortality, and the implementation of hypothetical regulations. The primary independent variables in the study were health beliefs, trust, and influence. The health beliefs measured included the perceived threat of COVID-19 as well as the perceived barriers, harms, and benefits of accepting a booster dose. These parameters were measured using items and a scoring system adapted from Chen et al. and Wong et al. [23, 24] . Each belief was measured with a 6-itemed Likert scale, and each measure was displayed as an average score from a number of items (Table S1 ). The scores were then converted into a scale of 0 to 10. Each health belief was then dichotomized, using the median as the cut-off point, into 'high' (≥median) and 'low' (