Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-8-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Biology
First Advisor
Aaron Lee
Second Advisor
Todd Smitherman
Third Advisor
Nicolaas Prins
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted many aspects of American’s lives causing over 79 million cases and over 950,000 deaths. Existing research shows severity of COVID-19 infection may be linked to number of underlying health conditions, known as comorbidities. The objective of this study was to determine if comorbidity burden was associated with intention to vaccinate against COVID-19. This relationship was looked at through the Health Belief Model (HBM) and its mediating variables of perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers. Our sample was compromised of 350 individuals recruited from an online platform who were not already vaccinated against COVID-19. Respondents completed a survey with measures of sociodemographic characteristics, mediators of the HBM, intention to vaccinate, and behavioral intention. Two parallel mediation models were examined for both low and high-risk comorbidity burden on behavioral intentions for COVID-19 vaccination via perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers with controls for age and smoking status, established risk factors for COVID-19. Overall, our results showed the HBM model did not mediate intentions to vaccinated as related to comorbidity burden. There was one significant indirect effect across both models for low-risk comorbidity burden via perceived barriers (B = 0.20, 95%CI: -0.45, -0.02), indicating individuals with greater low-risk comorbidity burden have lower intention to be vaccinated against COVID-19. In conclusion, these results suggest that HBM may not fully account for attitudes and beliefs linking comorbidity related COIVD-19 risk and COVID vaccination intention. These findings suggest that targeted loss-framed messages focusing on patients’ comorbidity burden and related COVID susceptibility and severity may have little impact on individuals’ vaccination intentions. Gain framed messages emphasizing the benefits of COVID vaccination may be similarly ineffective for increase vaccination intentions.
Recommended Citation
Raymond, Michael, "Comorbidity Burden and COVID-19 Vaccination Intention: Application of the Health Belief Model" (2022). Honors Theses. 2713.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2713
Accessibility Status
Searchable text
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Included in
Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Other Public Health Commons