Controversies about COVID-19 vaccination have centered around several issues, including: vaccine safety and side effects vaccine efficacy vaccine shedding the inclusion of controversial substances in the vaccines and government infringement (Krawczyk et al., 2021 Loomba et al., 2021 Olive et al., 2018), which are, in turn, associated with hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccine (Loomba et al., 2021 Reiter et al., 2020). Starting during vaccine development, COVID-19 vaccination has received extensive media coverage (Krawczyk et al., 2021) and has been involved in a large amount of controversy including widespread misinformation (Hotez et al., 2021). population is considered to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of September 2021 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a). but, despite widespread vaccine availability, only about 53% of the total U.S. Multiple COVID-19 vaccines are now available in the U.S. The World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). It is important to monitor hesitancy as new threats-such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-emerge, and new vaccines become available. Vaccination is heralded as one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011), yet a growing number of people in the United States (U.S.) either are hesitant or refuse to receive recommended vaccinations (Olive et al., 2018) and, the World Health Organization identified vaccination hesitancy as one of the ten leading threats to global health in 2019 (World Health Organization, 2019). Findings suggest negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on key antecedents of general vaccination and identify potential targets for interventions. Antecedents also varied by demographic characteristics. In multivariable analyses, confidence and collective responsibility varied relative to the pandemic phase/vaccine availability, reflecting greater hesitancy during later stages of the pandemic. Overall, men had high levels of confidence (trust in vaccines M = 4.13), calculation (deliberation M = 3.97) and collective responsibility (protecting others M = 4.05) and low levels of complacency (not perceiving disease risk M = 1.72). As part of an ongoing online study, we recruited a national (U.S.) sample of young gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men ( N = 1,227) between October 2019 and June 2021, and assessed the “4Cs” (antecedents of vaccination range = 1–5).
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We sought to describe key psychological antecedents related to vaccination and assess how these vary temporally in relationship to the pandemic and availability of COVID-19 vaccination. Extensive media coverage and potential controversy about COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic may have affected people’s general attitudes towards vaccination.