COVID-19 continues to occupy our minds and affect our everyday lives. As vaccinations rolled out, questions emerged around what new directions the virus would take. For our third survey on COVID-19 Vaccination Perceptions and Behaviors (“Survey 3”), which was open between April and June 2021, we wanted to understand how people’s feelings and behaviors evolved as vaccination efforts continued in our communities.
We learned what percentage of members had gotten at least one vaccine, when they decided to get vaccinated, and what activities they felt comfortable resuming. The data also show interesting shifts in behaviors and mindsets compared to our previous surveys, and we’re excited to dive into some of the details with you below!
For an overview of the study objectives, methods, and results from the first perceptions and behaviors survey, please see our original blog post here. You can find the preliminary results from our second perceptions and behaviors survey here.
Background
74,740 people (“participants”) completed Survey 3. The average age of participants was 39.1, which is slightly higher than the previous surveys. Most participants identified as female (80.7%) and identified as white (79.6%).
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Vaccination Perceptions and Behaviors
The main focus for this survey was to examine people’s beliefs and preferences around COVID-19 vaccination now that access to the vaccine is more widespread.
72.6% of Survey 3 participants reported having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine.
This percentage represents a substantial increase compared to our last survey, in which only 11.4% of participants had received a vaccine. We expected to see an increase since more people were eligible for vaccination during Survey 3 than in Survey 2 (which launched in January 2021), but were surprised by the magnitude: for comparison, only about 63% of the US adult population had received at least one vaccine when the survey closed (see here for the CDC’s summary of COVID and US vaccination in early June).
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A majority of vaccinated participants received the Pfizer vaccine (53.8%), followed by Moderna (39.2%) and Johnson & Johnson (6.7%).
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Most vaccinated participants were eager to get the vaccine as soon as they became eligible. (63.3%).
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For many people, increasing access to COVID-19 vaccination was accompanied by a return to certain activities that had been put on hold. Between April and June, 47% of vaccinated participants started attending indoor events with others who are vaccinated, and 43.9% began eating in restaurants again. Meanwhile, 15.9% of participants reported that they had not yet resumed any activities.
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Changing Trends Over Time
We were happy to see a number of positive trends when we looked at evolving perceptions throughout the three surveys we’ve completed in the series so far. For example, Survey 3 participants tended to report lower hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccines compared to previous surveys.
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This decrease in hesitancy may be due to an increase in information: Survey 3 participants reported feeling even more informed about the vaccines than previous survey participants. 68.9% of people reported feeling “informed” or “very informed”, compared with 53.3% in Survey 2 and 27.1% in Survey 1.
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Participants also reported being increasingly likely to get their children vaccinated when they could. 37.2% of participants reported that they would vaccinate their children when they were able to, compared to 26.9% in Survey 2 and 19.2% in Survey 1.
We look forward to exploring more about decisions to vaccinate children in our next Perceptions and Behaviors survey.
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Next Steps
To understand how people’s perceptions and behaviors related to COVID-19 vaccination have continued to evolve as variants spread and vaccines became available to children, we will soon send an additional survey on Evidation Members’ perceptions and behaviors. Stay tuned for more!
If you’d like to get vaccinated, see this CDC page with resources to find appointments near you.
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