Journal of Epidemiology
Online ISSN : 1349-9092
Print ISSN : 0917-5040
ISSN-L : 0917-5040

This article has now been updated. Please use the final version.

version.2
The Prevalence of COVID-19 Vaccination and Vaccine Hesitancy in Pregnant Women: An Internet-based Cross-sectional Study in Japan
Yoshihiko HosokawaSumiyo OkawaAi HoriNaho MorisakiYoko TakahashiTakeo FujiwaraShoji F. NakayamaHiromi HamadaToyomi SatohTakahiro Tabuchi
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JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS Advance online publication
Supplementary material

Article ID: JE20210458

version.2: February 11, 2022
version.1: January 29, 2022
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Abstract

Background: Reluctance of people to receive recommended vaccines is a growing concern, as distribution of vaccines is considered critical to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. There is little information regarding pregnant women’s views toward coronavirus vaccination in Japan. Therefore, we investigated the vaccination rate and reasons for vaccination and vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women in Japan.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 1,791 pregnant women using data from the Japan “COVID-19 and Society” Internet Survey, conducted from July to August 2021, and valid response from 1,621 respondents were analyzed. We defined participants with vaccine hesitancy as those who identified with the statement “I do not want to be vaccinated” or “I want to ‘wait and see’ before getting vaccinated.” Multivariate Poisson regression analysis was used to investigate the factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy.

Results: The prevalence of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women was 13.4% (n = 217) and 50.9% (n = 825), respectively. The main reasons for hesitancy were concerns about adverse reactions and negative effects on the fetus and breastfeeding. Vaccine hesitancy was significantly associated with the lack of trust in the government (adjusted prevalence ratio, 1.26; 95% confidence interval, 1.03–1.54). Other factors, such as age, educational attainment, and state of emergency declaration, were not associated with vaccine hesitancy.

Conclusions: COVID-19 vaccination is not widespread among pregnant women in Japan, although many vaccines have been shown to be safe in pregnancy. Accurate information dissemination and boosting trust in the government may be important to address vaccine hesitancy among pregnant women.

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© 2022 Yoshihiko Hosokawa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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