The Te Whanau o Waipareira mobile vaccination bus sets up on Auckland's Don Buck Rd. Researchers have suggested new ways to reach New Zealand's remaining unvaccinated. Photo / Michael Craig
The Te Whanau o Waipareira mobile vaccination bus sets up on Auckland's Don Buck Rd. Researchers have suggested new ways to reach New Zealand's remaining unvaccinated. Photo / Michael Craig
Cash incentives and other smart strategies may help New Zealand's vaccination roll-out cover more of those hard-to-reach Kiwis among the final 10 per cent.
As at today, 88 per cent of the eligible population had received their first dose of the Pfizer shot, while 76 per cent - or 3,179,817 people - were now fully vaccinated.
In a new study, researchers looked at various barriers preventing people from getting vaccinated, and what might help motivate them.
The research, published online ahead of peer review, drew on a survey of just over 1000 people from across the country, who were asked about their beliefs around Covid-19, vaccines and their attitudes toward receiving them.
The respondents were also quizzed on how "involved" or passionate they were in getting vaccinated, along with attempting to eliminate the virus from New Zealand.
At the time the survey was carried out, in March 2021, about 70 per cent of the respondents said they were in favour of getting vaccinated, while about 25 per cent were either hesitant or unsure.
Only a small proportion – about four per cent – stated they were strongly against vaccination.
Dr Geoff Kaine, who carried out the work with Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research colleague Dr Suzie Greenhalgh and Dr Vic Wright of the University of New England in Australia, said those "hesitant" respondents generally fell into two groups.
Those were "involved" people who were keen to stop the virus spreading but were concerned about vaccine side effects, and "uninvolved" people whose hesitancy stemmed from a lack of concern about Covid-19.
"Knowing how concerned or passionate people are with a subject is important because, people with high involvement will respond differently to people with low involvement - even though they have the same attitude," Kaine explained.
"This means different approaches will be more or less effective at influencing the willingness of someone to be vaccinated, depending on their involvement with being vaccinated."
Kaine said those highly-interested yet hesitant people required much persuasion about the safety of vaccines – along with their increasing risk of catching the virus – to convince them to be vaccinated.
"These people are looking for more information on social and traditional media and, especially, advice from people they trust," he said.
Wright added: "Creating situations where being unvaccinated is inconvenient – such as requiring vaccination certificates to travel, go to restaurants, or attend large-scale public events - is likely to cause resentment among these people."
Other strategies might be found in offering alternatives to the Pfizer vaccine, despite its very high level of safety and effectiveness, or combating misinformation with detailed resources about vaccine safety.
For those more disengaged people, he said it would be important to make vaccination as easy as possible - and potentially also offer rewards like cash incentives, prizes and shopping vouchers.
Such an incentive scheme was proposed last month by Act Party leader David Seymour, who suggested that proof of vaccination could qualify people for a $250 vaccination tax credit when they filed their return next year.
Greenhalgh said the process of acquiring vaccine passports or certificates – soon to be introduced - would also need to be relatively simple.
"Ideally, the passport process should be automatic and you receive the passport immediately you are recorded as fully vaccinated, unless you choose to opt out," she said.
"It's also about making it very clear they will need a vaccine passport to engage in activities they do really care about like, for example, going to festivals and sporting events.
"To me, the take away point is that there needs to be a mixed approach to engage the remaining unvaccinated people."
The latest Ministry of Health-commissioned research, as at August, showed that around 70 per cent of respondents not already vaccinated said they were likely to get vaccine - a similar result to the month before.
The overall potential uptake - including those already vaccinated and those likely to get a vaccine - was estimated to be 85.5 per cent per cent of the population over 12.
Barriers listed by those unwilling or hesitant people included concerns around safety, side effects, and the vaccine not being effective against new variants – and nearly half of those hard against vaccination said they didn't see the need.
