Collective good and individual choice: Perceptions on COVID-19 vaccine mandate among COVID-19 vaccinated individuals.

Introduction: Vaccine mandates are controversial, and people vary widely in their preferences to support or reject vaccine mandates. For some, vaccine mandates represent a commitment to reduce harm and support public health. For others, vaccine mandates are viewed as a threat to individual freedom and a violation of personal choice. This manuscript investigated support for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate among COVID-19-vaccinated individuals and identified differences by demographic characteristics and COVID-19 experience.
Methods: Cross-sectional surveys were given to COVID-19-vaccinated individuals at a vaccination clinic in South Texas in the U.S. with the goal of identifying attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about COVID-19 vaccination and willingness to support a COVID-19 vaccination mandate. Associations of interest were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
Key Results: Approximately half of the sample was of Hispanic or Latino origin (48 %); most respondents identified as White (59 %), followed by 12 % who identified as Asian. Overall, 59 % of participants supported the possibility for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Preliminary data showed significant racial differences in willingness to support a possible COVID-19 vaccine mandate (χ ² (1, n = 893) = 26.7, p < .001, phi = .17); 80 % of Asian people reported support for COVID-19 vaccination mandate compared to 50 % to 57 % for other racial groups. Significant differences also emerged by ethnicity (χ ² (4, n = 1033) = 7.12, p = .008, phi = .08) whereby a higher percentage of Latino participants (66 %) reported willingness to support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Similarly, significant differences were found by age (χ ² (4, n = 1045) = 20.92, p < .001, phi = .21), yet no significant differences were found by sex or previous COVID-19 diagnosis.
Conclusion: Support for a COVID-19 vaccination mandate is controversial even among vaccinated people. Identifying and understanding cultural and contextual factors that underlie differences in attitudes and beliefs about COVID-19 vaccination mandates is essential to advance dialogue and inform educational health campaigns to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)