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Collective Service Documentation

WHO PAHO

Concerns, attitudes, and intended practices of Caribbean healthcare workers concerning COVID-19 vaccination: A cross-sectional study

Description

The Caribbean has a long history of being a global leader in immunization, and one factor contributing
to this success has been the commitment of healthcare workers in promoting the benefits of vaccines. Healthcare
workers play a critical role in building trust between the public and the immunization program and are generally
cited as the most trusted source of information on vaccination. Healthcare workers themselves, therefore, must be
confident in vaccination as a public health good and able to transmit this confidence to those who trust them. However, just as with the general public, healthcare workers develop confidence at different rates and may be susceptible
to misinformation about vaccines.
Methods
During April and May 2021, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) conducted a mixed-methods survey to assess vaccination attitudes, opinions, and reasoning of 1197 healthcare workers across 14 Caribbean countries.

Findings
Seventy-seven percent of respondents expressed clear intention to be vaccinated for COVID-19 as soon as possible. Intention to be vaccinated as soon as possible was expressed by lower proportions of nurses (66%) and allied health professionals (62%) than physicians (85%) and by younger respondents than older ones (64% vs. 85%, respectively; p < 0.001 for all these comparisons). Across 32 questions about attitudes and opinions, vaccine hesitancy was consistently expressed by higher proportions of nurses and allied health professionals than physicians and by younger respondents than older ones.

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DETAILS

Publication

2022

Authors

E. B. Puertas, M. Velandia-Gonzalez, L.Vulanovic, L. Bayley et al.

Emergency

Scope

Social science

Language

English

Region

Americas

Keywords

FAQ, Vaccine hesitancy, Caribbean, Survey, COVID-19, Vaccine acceptance, Healthcare workers