Page 76 - IJPS-10-1

International Journal of
Population Studies Drivers of COVID-19 vaccination in South Africa

refused to answer COVID-related questions, were not sociodemographic dimensions of willingness to get
available, or could not be tracked from the previous waves, vaccinated of the study population were analyzed using
and/or did not provide any responses to COVID-related Chi-squared test. Binary logistic regression analysis
questions. Of the 8,051 respondents in the Wave 5 dataset, was employed to examine the relationship between
we worked with the weighted sub-sample of 5,862 who the sociodemographic variables and the respondents’
satisfied the inclusion criteria. willingness to get vaccinated. Four regression models were
run. In the first three models, the three main independent
2.3. Variable definitions variables were tested individually, while in the fourth
The primary outcome variable of this study is the willingness model, we controlled for the sociodemographic variables.
to get vaccinated against COVID-19. In the NIDS-CRAM The fourth model was run as a full model to incorporate all
questionnaire, this variable is captured in question G11 three main independent variables, rather than one at a time,
as “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the to enable a complete picture of the relationship between
statement: If a vaccine for COVID-19 were available, these independent variables and the outcome variable after
would I get it?” The response options include “strongly other confounders, including the other main predictors,
agree,” “somewhat agree,” “somewhat disagree,” “strongly was controlled for. Running the model while isolating the
disagree,” “refused,” and “do not know.” In line with our other main predictors would have presented results under
prime objective to study the willingness of respondents the presumption that the other main predictors were of
to get vaccinated, responses that indicated any degree of no influence on the relationship. Results were considered
willingness, such as “strongly agree” and “somewhat agree,” statistically significant at p < 0.05.
were coded as willing to get vaccinated (Yes, 1), while other 2.5. Ethical consideration
options were coded as unwilling (No, 0).
The implementer of the NIDS-CRAM survey has obtained
The primary independent variables include beliefs ethics approval from the University of Cape Town
about the risk of being infected (question G1), case Commerce Ethics Committee to conduct the survey (REC
familiarity (question G3), and respondent’s current health 2020/04/017).
status (question G16). In the NIDS-CRAM questionnaire,
these variables are captured in the following questions: 3. Results
“Do you think you are likely to get the Coronavirus?”, One-third of the respondents were aged 35 – 49 (Table 1).
“Do you know anyone who has been diagnosed with the The sample was also made up of more females (61.7%),
Coronavirus?”, and “How would you describe your health Blacks (86.5%), respondents without tertiary education
at present? Would you say it is excellent, very good, good, (62.1%), single individuals (56.3%), respondents from
fair, or poor?”, respectively. The three response options for the KwaZulu Natal province (28.7%), and rural dwellers
questions G1 and G3 are “do not know,” “no,” and “yes.” (54.9%). A high proportion of female respondents in
The response options for question G16 are “excellent,” the sample suggests that there were more females in the
“very good,” “good,” “fair,” and “poor.” These were coded as initial sample of the 2017 NIDS survey, and more females
“fair” (0), “poor,” (1) and “good to excellent” (2). constituted the majority among those available and willing
Other explanatory variables employed from the dataset to participate in the follow-up NIDS-CRAM survey in 2020.
include age (A8), sex (Ba1), race (Ba2), educational status Households with between 1 and 4 residents (47.5%) and
(Ba4), marital status (Ba5), province of residence (Bb1), without any occupant over the age of 60 (66.3%) were also
place of residence (rural or urban) (Bb2), number of in the majority. More than 53% of the population believed
persons in residence (Bc1), number of people aged 60 and that they were not at risk of contracting COVID-19, 35%
above in a residence (Bc5), and mental health status of the had experienced depression, 71.8% believed that their
respondents (G20). Question G20 is phrased as “Over the health was in good to excellent state, and 31.6% knew
last 2 weeks, have you been feeling down, depressed or someone suffering from COVID-19. Only 2.1% of the
hopeless?”. The responses for this question were “not at all,” population had been vaccinated but 76.3% were willing to
“several days,” “more than half the days,” “nearly every day,” be vaccinated if the vaccines were available.
and “do not know.” Individuals who responded “not at all” The willingness to get vaccinated was high among all
were categorized as “not depressed/hopeless/down.” the sociodemographic categories (63.5 – 83.4%), as shown
in the third column of Table 1. The lowest end of the range,
2.4. Data analysis
however, was among the Whites (63.5%), those aged 18 –
The sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents 24 (66.5%), those who had received no formal education
were expressed in simple frequency, while the (69.2%), and residents of the Northern Cape province

Volume 10 Issue 1 (2024) 70 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.479