PhD Scientific Days 2025

Poster Session II. - O: Health Sciences

Vaccination Literacy and its Determinants in Hungary

Name of the presenter

Mátyás Gabriella

Institute/workplace of the presenter

Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen; Doctoral School of Health Sciences, University of Debrecen

Authors

Gabriella Mátyás^1,2, Ferenc Vincze¹, Róza Ádány^1,3,4,5, Éva Bíró¹

1: Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
2: Doctoral School of Health Sciences, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
3: HUN-REN-UD Public Health Research Group, Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
4: National Laboratory for Health Security, Center for Epidemiology and Surveillance, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary
5: Department of Public Health, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Text of the abstract

Introduction: Despite the proven efficacy of vaccines in disease prevention and disability elimination and their cost-effectiveness in saving lives, a segment of the population remains sceptical of their effectiveness and declines vaccination. Vaccination literacy plays a primary role in vaccine decision-making.
Aims: The aim of our study was twofold: first, to furnish additional data on the level and determinants of vaccination literacy within the Hungarian adult population and second, to adopt and rely on a novel instrument for measuring vaccination literacy.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 1205 participants as part of the European Health Literacy Population Survey 2019–2021. Data were collected via a computer-assisted telephone survey in December 2020 due to restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between vaccination literacy and other pertinent variables.
Result: The Cronbach's alpha was 0.69 when assessing the instrument's validity, whereas the split-half reliability, measured by the Spearman-Brown correlation coefficient, was 0.725. Principal component analysis identified one significant factor that explained 55.9% of the total variation. The Hungarian adult population has a good level of vaccination literacy (mean: 82.41). Our study has identified social support, absence of financial deprivation, and secondary education level as factors associated positively with vaccination literacy.
Conclusion: We recommend using the vaccination literacy instrument from the European Health Literacy Population Survey 2019–2021 to identify individuals with low vaccination literacy. Interventions focusing on social support and education to disseminate vaccine-related information would improve vaccination literacy in Hungary.
Funding: The work was supported by the Ministry of Human Capacities, Hungary (IV/956-4/2020/EKF) and by the Interior Ministry, Hungary (BM/10449-2/2023). This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (BO/00933/22/5). This project was also financed by the HUN-EN Research Network (TKCS-2021/32). RÁ also works as team member of the National Laboratory for Health Security Hungary (RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00006) supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH).