"The More Trust in Government, the Higher the Response 'Will Get COVID-19 Vaccination'"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] An analysis has shown that the higher the trust in the government, the higher the rate of willingness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

On the 22nd, according to academia, Seonjae Hwang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Chungnam National University; Jeonga Gil, Research Professor at the Government Studies Institute of Korea University; and Seulgi Choi, Associate Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, revealed these results in their paper titled "COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance: Focusing on Government Trust Factors," published in the June issue of Korean Demography, Vol. 44, No. 2.

The research team conducted an online survey from February 5 to 10 targeting 2,000 adult men and women aged 25 to 49. Among 1,924 respondents, 72.61% answered that they would receive the vaccine, while 27.39% said they would not.

Using "vaccine acceptance," indicating whether or not to receive the vaccine, as the dependent variable, and "government trust," measured on a 1 to 5 scale, as the main independent variable, the analysis showed that the higher the trust in the government, the higher the proportion of respondents who said they would get vaccinated.

The research team stated, "Even after controlling for variables such as 'supporting political party' and 'political orientation,' which could affect the government trust variable, this trend remained," adding, "The government trust variable is closely related to vaccine acceptance."

When converting the influence of government trust on vaccine acceptance into predicted probabilities, the group that "trusts the government very much" showed an 83.86% acceptance rate, while the group that "distrusts the government very much" showed 65.39%, a gap of 18.47 percentage points.

By political party support, vaccine acceptance among opposition party supporters (People Power Party, People Party) and independents was statistically significantly lower than that of ruling party supporters (Democratic Party of Korea, Open Democratic Party).

The research team suggested, "If citizens' trust in the government affects vaccine acceptance, ways to build support and trust for government policy implementation should be sought," and cautioned, "Care should be taken not to let the issue of vaccine inoculation become a partisan debate."