RAPID: Partisanship, Trust, and Vaccine Hesitancy: Impacts of the 2020 Election on COVID-19 Risk Management

美国正处于抗击COVID-19的两个潜在分水岭时刻的边缘。首先，COVID-19疫苗正在进行临床试验，这表明最早将于2021年春季广泛分发。疫苗接种被广泛认为是遏制COVID-19传播的最关键的公共卫生干预措施之一，COVID-19已经夺去了超过22万美国人的生命。与此同时，考虑到大流行和疫苗广泛的超政治化，2020年美国总统大选可能会对疫苗接种产生重大影响。所有这一切都是在对结构性种族主义的高度关注的背景下发生的，这种关注已经确定了COVID-19对不同种族群体的影响存在重大差异。这些事件的汇合将对美国COVID-19大流行的长期轨迹产生深远影响，以及公众对疫苗风险和政府可信度的看法。根据对美国居民进行的多波全国性调查收集的数据，该项目探讨了党派偏见、与疫苗相关的风险认知以及其他外部（通常是不可预测的）事件等因素对COVID-19疫苗接种的影响。本研究的结果提出了新型风险背景下风险管理、信息寻求和政策过程的关键理论。该研究还为公共卫生官员提供了及时可用的信息，帮助他们设计公平的政策和做法，以弥合疫苗供应和接种之间的差距。在COVID-19背景下，从2020年美国大选到预计批准新冠肺炎疫情之间的这段时间，19疫苗提供了一个机会来评估政治和信息环境中的外源性事件如何塑造个人与疫苗相关的感知和行为。使用三波小组调查分发给美国居民的人口统计学代表性的国家样本，这项研究捕捉了风险认知和行为意图的变化，以及可能影响疫苗接种的党派，机构信任和结构性种族主义等因素。第一波数据收集（T1）紧随2020年选举结果公布之后。由于总统选举往往会扩大两极分化，同时获得巨大的媒体关注，这一时机代表了为该项目获取初始数据的关键时刻。随着疫苗开发的进展，后续调查波约为2021年2月（T2）和2021年4月（T3）。这项研究的结果促进了对个人风险认知随时间演变的过程的更有力的理解，并与社会和政治因素相互作用，以影响行为。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

The United States is on the verge of two potentially watershed moments in the fight against COVID-19. First, COVID-19 vaccines are being tested in clinical trials, suggesting widespread distribution as early as spring 2021. Vaccination is widely considered one of the most critical public health interventions for curbing the spread of COVID-19, which has already claimed more than 220,000 American lives. At the same time, the 2020 U.S. presidential election is likely to have a significant impact on vaccine uptake given the hyper-politicization of both the pandemic and vaccines broadly. All of this is occurring against the backdrop of heightened attention to structural racism, which has identified significant disparities in COVID-19 impacts across racial groups. The confluence of these events will have profound implications for the long-term trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., as well as for the public’s perceptions of vaccine risk and government trustworthiness. Based on data collected through a multi-wave national survey of U.S. residents, this project explores the impact of factors such as partisanship, risk perceptions related to vaccines, and other exogenous—and often unpredictable—events on intended uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. The results of this study advances key theories of risk management, information seeking, and the policy process in the context of novel risks. The research also provides timely and usable information to public health officials about the design of equitable policies and practices for bridging the gap between vaccine availability and uptake.In the context of COVID-19, the period between the 2020 U.S. election and the expected approval of a COVID-19 vaccine provides an opportunity to assess how exogenous events in the political and information environment shape individuals’ vaccine-related perceptions and behaviors. Using a three-wave panel survey distributed to a demographically-representative national sample of U.S. residents, this study captures changes in risk perceptions and behavioral intentions, as well as in factors such as partisanship, trust in institutions, and structural racism that may influence vaccine uptake. The first wave of data collection (T1) is immediately following the announcement of 2020 election results. Because presidential elections tend to magnify polarization while garnering enormous media attention, this timing represents a critical moment to capture initial data for the project. Subsequent survey waves are approximately February 2021 (T2) and April 2021 (T3) as vaccine development advances. This research produces findings that promote a more robust understanding of the process through which individual risk perceptions evolve across time and interact with social and political factors to influence behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.