Perceptions on Covid-19 and Malaria Vaccine Acceptance: Evidence from Kenya

In October 2021, WHO recommended widespread use among children of the first ever malaria vaccine (RTS,S/AS01). Because in Sub-Saharan Africa malaria remains a primary cause of death, successful immunization campaigns against this disease could save tens of thousands young lives every year. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing body of research on vaccine attitudes suggests that immunization acceptance has declined not only for vaccines against COVID-19 but also against other diseases (e.g., influenza). In fact, most determinants of vaccination hesitancy are not specific to the COVID-19 vaccine (e.g., mistrust in pharmaceutical companies, (too) rapid development of vaccines, and concerns about severe side effects). Although a number of articles on how COVID-19 vaccine (mis)perceptions affect hesitancy for other immunization campaigns (He et al. 2022; Dubé and MacDonald 2020; Wang et al. 2022), no experimental study investigates this nexus for the case of the newly licensed malaria vaccine (Shah et al. 2022). In this study, we investigate whether recalling personal opinions about COVID-19 immunization affects short-term malaria vaccination hesitancy. We test this hypothesis by means of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) where the individuals in the treatment group are asked to reveal their beliefs about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and safety before being asked about their attitudes towards the newly WHO licensed malaria vaccine. Conversely, the control group will answer the same questions about malaria immunization without any direct or indirect recall to COVID-19. The study’s primary data will consist of telephone surveys from a randomly drawn representative sample of adult individuals from selected Kenyan counties facing medium to high risk of P. falciparum malaria transmission .