Prioritization preferences for COVID-19 vaccination are consistent across five countries

Journal article

Our main aim is to understand to what extent Bedouins, internally displaced Palestinians (refugees) and majority-group members (non-refugees, non-Bedouins, settled) in the West Bank prioritize COVID-19 booster shots for their own group over other groups. We conducted a survey experiment (face-to-face) among 678 Palestinians living in the West Bank. Participants randomly received a description of an older man (Bedouin, refugee, settled) and were asked to indicate to what extent this person should be prioritized for the booster shot. Respondents belonging to a minority saw the profile of an in-group member or a majority-group member, whereas majority-group members would see the profile of an in-group or one out-group member (Bedouin, Palestinian refugee). We found slightly higher in-group preferences for Palestinian refugees when it came to vaccination, whereas majority-group members were less inclined to support a prioritization of Palestinian refugees but equally prioritized their group and Bedouins. For Bedouins, we did not find strong in-group preferences. Our study reveals the salience of group boundaries during the COVID-19 pandemic with potentially adverse effects on the health care of minorities

Authors: Munzert, S; Ramirez-Ruiz, S; Çalı, B; Stoetzer, LF; Gohdes, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer Nature [academic journals on nature.com]
• Journal: Humanities & Social Sciences Communications
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 439-439
• Article number: 439
• Publication date: 2022-12-07
• DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01392-1
• EISSN: 2662-9992
• ISSN: 2662-9992
• Language: English
• Keywords: Business; Public health; Commodity; Virology; Medicine; Economics; Political science; Ranking (information retrieval); Computer science; Nursing; Prioritization; Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); Vaccination; Economic growth; Health care