{"title":"COVID-19 vaccination refusal among the anti-vaccinationists in a Chinese society: a critical medical anthropology study of the vaccination barriers.","authors":"Judy Yuen-Man Siu","doi":"10.3389/fpubh.2025.1495951","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>This study investigated the reasons for COVID-19 vaccination refusal among some Hong Kong residents who were anti-vaccinationists, despite the implementation of a vaccine incentive policy called the Vaccine Pass. The health belief model and the theory of planned behavior have been widely employed to analyze the determinants of COVID-19 vaccination. However, these two theories focus on the micro individual factors, which do not provide a sufficiently comprehensive analysis.</p><p><strong>Study design: </strong>A qualitative descriptive approach with a critical medical anthropology framework.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study adopts a critical medical anthropology framework that provides a micro and macro analysis at four social levels. A qualitative approach with individual, semi-structured, in-depth interviews was conducted from September 2022 to March 2023 with 30 individuals aged 20-59 years who did not receive COVID-19 vaccination in Hong Kong. The participants were recruited through purposive sampling and snowball sampling. A thematic analysis of data was implemented.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The reasons for COVID-19 vaccination refusal involved intertwining relationships among factors in the four social levels of the critical medical anthropology framework. The participants' doubts about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines at the individual level were interacting with: (1) their ethnocultural beliefs and the perceived profit-oriented nature of vaccine production and distribution at the macro-social level, (2) their interpretation of the inconsistent advice of medical doctors at the micro-social level, and (3) their distrust in the government's vaccination policies at the intermediate-social level.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The participants' refusal of COVID-19 vaccines was correlated with perceived profit motives related to the vaccine, perceived conflict of interest of health-care providers, and the distrust of government.</p>","PeriodicalId":12548,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Public Health","volume":"13 ","pages":"1495951"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11933093/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Public Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1495951","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: This study investigated the reasons for COVID-19 vaccination refusal among some Hong Kong residents who were anti-vaccinationists, despite the implementation of a vaccine incentive policy called the Vaccine Pass. The health belief model and the theory of planned behavior have been widely employed to analyze the determinants of COVID-19 vaccination. However, these two theories focus on the micro individual factors, which do not provide a sufficiently comprehensive analysis.
Study design: A qualitative descriptive approach with a critical medical anthropology framework.
Methods: This study adopts a critical medical anthropology framework that provides a micro and macro analysis at four social levels. A qualitative approach with individual, semi-structured, in-depth interviews was conducted from September 2022 to March 2023 with 30 individuals aged 20-59 years who did not receive COVID-19 vaccination in Hong Kong. The participants were recruited through purposive sampling and snowball sampling. A thematic analysis of data was implemented.
Results: The reasons for COVID-19 vaccination refusal involved intertwining relationships among factors in the four social levels of the critical medical anthropology framework. The participants' doubts about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines at the individual level were interacting with: (1) their ethnocultural beliefs and the perceived profit-oriented nature of vaccine production and distribution at the macro-social level, (2) their interpretation of the inconsistent advice of medical doctors at the micro-social level, and (3) their distrust in the government's vaccination policies at the intermediate-social level.
Conclusion: The participants' refusal of COVID-19 vaccines was correlated with perceived profit motives related to the vaccine, perceived conflict of interest of health-care providers, and the distrust of government.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Public Health is a multidisciplinary open-access journal which publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research and is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians, policy makers and the public worldwide. The journal aims at overcoming current fragmentation in research and publication, promoting consistency in pursuing relevant scientific themes, and supporting finding dissemination and translation into practice.
Frontiers in Public Health is organized into Specialty Sections that cover different areas of research in the field. Please refer to the author guidelines for details on article types and the submission process.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
