Trade-Offs between Vaccine Effectiveness and Vaccine Safety: Personal versus Policy Decisions

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Behavioral Economics
• Vaccinology

Background:

• Understanding individual decision-making regarding vaccine trade-offs between effectiveness and safety is critical for public health policy.
• Previous research has not fully explored how perspective-taking (policymaker vs. personal) influences these trade-offs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if individuals' trade-offs between vaccine effectiveness and safety differ when making decisions for others as a policymaker versus for themselves.
• To analyze how risk aversion to vaccine-related deaths changes based on decision-making perspective.

Main Methods:

• A web-enabled discrete choice experiment was conducted in Indonesia and Vietnam with 1000 general population participants.
• Participants (n=500 per country) were randomly assigned to make COVID-19 vaccine decisions from a policymaker or personal perspective.
• Vaccines were evaluated based on infection reduction, hospitalization reduction, and risk of death from adverse events; analysis used a mixed logit model.

Main Results:

• Risk of death from vaccine-related adverse events was the most significant attribute, followed by effectiveness in reducing infection and hospitalizations.
• Vaccine choice probability was lower in policy decisions compared to personal decisions.
• Policy decisions exhibited greater sensitivity to changes in the risk of death from adverse events (p ≤ 0.01).

Conclusions:

• Individuals demonstrate increased risk aversion to vaccine-related deaths when acting as policymakers for others compared to making personal health decisions.
• These findings have significant implications for designing public health communication strategies and vaccine policies during infectious disease outbreaks.