Understanding and Countering Vaccine Hesitancy in Sub-Saharan Africa

This 3-year project aims to understand and counter vaccine hesitancy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We will examine how information and low-stakes incentives impact vaccine uptake and, more generally, how such interventions influence social norms, attitudes, and curb misinformation.

We will use a mixture of methods to characterize the determinants of vaccine hesitancy in Burkina Faso and perform a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to study if a set of easily implementable interventions can improve individuals’ awareness, knowledge, trust, and ultimately their willingness to vaccinate against COVID-19.

Our RCT will link data from administrative vaccination records with a national ongoing panel survey.

The research team has extensive experience in research dealing with interventions for vaccination uptake and extensive knowledge about Burkina Faso.

The results of this study will be of direct help to government institutions in Africa which, with limited resources, are struggling to increase vaccine uptake. The benefits go beyond countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the WHO, the longer it takes to reach a broad vaccination coverage globally, the higher the risk of mutations of the virus with continued severe consequences.

Projections show that Africa will not reach the WHO target of 70 percent COVID-19 vaccination coverage until August 2024.

The insights gained in our study will also provide essential knowledge for vaccinations against other infectious diseases in the future.