Yamamura, E.; Kohsaka, Y.; Tsutsui, Y.; Ohtake, F. Association between the COVID-19 Vaccine and Preventive Behaviors: Panel Data Analysis from Japan. Vaccines2023, 11, 810.
Yamamura, E.; Kohsaka, Y.; Tsutsui, Y.; Ohtake, F. Association between the COVID-19 Vaccine and Preventive Behaviors: Panel Data Analysis from Japan. Vaccines 2023, 11, 810.
Yamamura, E.; Kohsaka, Y.; Tsutsui, Y.; Ohtake, F. Association between the COVID-19 Vaccine and Preventive Behaviors: Panel Data Analysis from Japan. Vaccines2023, 11, 810.
Yamamura, E.; Kohsaka, Y.; Tsutsui, Y.; Ohtake, F. Association between the COVID-19 Vaccine and Preventive Behaviors: Panel Data Analysis from Japan. Vaccines 2023, 11, 810.
Abstract
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine is key to reducing the probability of contracting COVID-19. The vaccine is generally known to prevent severe illness, death, and hospitalization as a result of the disease and for considerably reducing COVID-19 infection risk. Accordingly, this might significantly change an individual’s perceived risk of altering everyday behaviors. For instance, the proliferation of vaccination is anticipated to reduce preventive behaviors such as staying at home, handwashing, and wearing a mask. We corresponded with the same individuals monthly for 18 months from March 2020 (early stage of COVID-19) to September 2021 in Japan to independently construct large sample panel data (N=54,007), with a participation rate of 54.7 %. We used a fixed effects model, controlling for key confounders, to determine whether vaccination was associated with a change in preventive behaviors. The major findings are as follows. Contrary to the prediction, (1) based on the whole sample, being vaccinated against COVID-19 led people to stay at home; however, it did not change the habit of handwashing and wearing a mask. Especially after the second shot, respondents were likelier to stay at home by 0.107 (95% CIs: 0.059–0.154) points on a 5-point scale compared to before the vaccination. Dividing the entire sample into young and old, (2) those aged ≤ 40 years were more likely to go out after being vaccinated, and (3) people over 40 years of age were more likely to stay at home (similar to the first result). Preventive behaviors impact all individuals during the current pandemic. Informal social norms motivate people to increase or maintain preventive behaviors even after being vaccinated in societies where these behaviors are not enforced.
Keywords
Vaccine; COVID-19; Preventive behaviors; Norm; Japan; Panel data
Subject
Social Sciences, Psychology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
