Okubo Toshihiro, Noy Ilan
Keio University, Japan.
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
SSM Popul Health. 2025 Feb 26;30:101769. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2025.101769. eCollection 2025 Jun.
The COVID-19 vaccines played a pivotal role in safeguarding many people. Yet, vaccine hesitancy remained a significant barrier to increasing coverage rates, as many high-income countries faced prolonged vaccine refusal campaigns. In Japan, vaccine doses were administered under a reservation system accessible via a website and by phone. Achieving a high vaccination coverage for a vaccine that was offered at no financial cost was surprisingly difficult in Japan as well. In many countries, vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic has been closely related to people's trust in their governments given governments' controversial social distancing mandates. In Japan, lockdowns were voluntary, and vaccinations were also not mandated. As there were no significant political conflicts about the government's policies, vaccination acceptance was influenced by more basic tenets, and we focus here on social capital, defined as cohesive links that enable a society to function effectively. Social capital, in this context, refers to community trust, collaboration, and engagement that create social bonds between individuals and society. Using a uniquely large survey, administered repeatedly through the years of the pandemic, we mostly find support, for the hypothesis that social capital matters for the vaccination decision; and that it matters even once we control for institutional trust (especially trust in the medical system). However, this general association between trust in other community members, belief in the willingness of community members to engage in reciprocal assistance, and belief in the more general willingness of the community to support individuals, were all associated differently with the vaccination decision, and with the views expressed about the vaccinations. From a policy perspective, this suggests that intra-community trust (i.e., bonding social capital), is important even in contexts when trust in governmental is not a significant concern.
新冠疫苗在保护许多人方面发挥了关键作用。然而，疫苗犹豫仍然是提高疫苗接种率的一个重大障碍，因为许多高收入国家面临着长期的抵制疫苗运动。在日本，疫苗接种是通过一个可通过网站和电话访问的预约系统进行的。在日本，要为一种免费提供的疫苗实现高接种率也出人意料地困难。在许多国家，疫情期间的疫苗犹豫与人们对政府的信任密切相关，因为政府实施了有争议的社交距离规定。在日本，封锁是自愿的，疫苗接种也没有强制要求。由于政府政策没有引发重大政治冲突，疫苗接种的接受度受到更基本的原则影响，我们在此关注社会资本，它被定义为使社会有效运转的凝聚性联系。在这种背景下，社会资本指的是社区信任、协作和参与，这些在个人与社会之间建立起社会纽带。通过在疫情期间多年反复进行的一项规模独特的大型调查，我们大多发现支持这样一种假设，即社会资本对疫苗接种决策很重要；而且即使在我们控制了制度信任（尤其是对医疗系统的信任）之后，它仍然很重要。然而，对其他社区成员的信任、对社区成员愿意提供相互帮助的信念以及对社区更普遍愿意支持个人的信念，所有这些与疫苗接种决策以及对疫苗接种表达的观点之间的关联都有所不同。从政策角度来看，这表明即使在对政府的信任不是重大问题的情况下，社区内部信任（即联结性社会资本）也很重要。
