Next In Line: Vaccine Hesitancy of Parents and Children in the Philippines, Findings from a Survey Experiment

The Philippines’ Covid-19 vaccination efforts are hampered by a population with high levels of vaccine hesitancy, low levels of generalized trust, and a pre-pandemic national health scare from a previous mass vaccination effort towards children. This paper examines messaging campaigns implemented in a survey experiment focused on reducing cognitive demands of processing information and evaluating benefits in the Philippines on a sample of 1,859 unvaccinated Filipinos. Treatment arms include: reverse endorsement to improve credibility of information sources, simplified messaging around vaccine information and effectiveness, and emphasizing the personal and social benefits of vaccination. Experiment results show the interventions, especially the ones emphasizing benefits to the individual and their friends and families, are highly effective in increasing willingness to be vaccinated. The interventions were also highly effective in groups where communication efforts should be concentrated: those who are uncertain about their plans to vaccinate and parents with children enrolled in school. With eligibility recently expanded to minors at least 5 years of age and a growing public desire to get students back in the classroom, these findings support how more personalized interventions such as leveraging pandemic effects on children and the resulting increased demand for caregiving could improve vaccine acceptance among adults and the children they are responsible for in the country’s pursuit to inoculate the youth and the rest of the population.