Vaccine-skeptic physicians and COVID-19 vaccination rates

Andreas Steinmayr and Manuel Rossi

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck

Abstract: What is the role of general practitioners (GPs) in supporting or hindering public health efforts? We investigate the influence of vaccine-skeptic GPs on their patients’ decisions to get a COVID-19 vaccination. We identify vaccine-skeptic GPs from the signatories of an open letter in which 199 Austrian physicians expressed their skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines. We examine small rural municipalities where patients choose a GP primarily based on geographic proximity. These vaccine-skeptic GPs reduced the vaccination rate by 5.6 percentage points. This estimate implies that they discouraged 7.9% of the vaccinable population. The effect appears to stem from discouragement rather than from rationing access to the vaccine.

Keywords: COVID-19 vaccination; vaccine hesitancy; health policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35
Date: 2022
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https://www2.uibk.ac.at/downloads/c9821000/wpaper/2022-16.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Vaccine-Skeptic Physicians and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2022-16

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