In 2014, the World Health Organization Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE working group) on vaccine hesitancy defined vaccine hesitancy as "delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite the availability of vaccination services." MATERIALS AND METHODS Study Design The cross-sectional study was designed and data was obtained through online data collection utilizing the Google forms platform. A key question asking about opinion getting COVID-19 vaccine was answered as "Yes" by 598 (77.5%) of the participants while 22.5% of the participants either choose "No" (54 participants) or 'Maybe' (120 participants) as an option [Figure 3], Majority of the participants 411 (53.2%) had income below 5 lakh with 92 participants refused to mention the income levels [Figure 4], Respondents were also asked about the presence of common risk factors among family members leading to higher chances of COVID-19 infection in future [Table 1]. Data obtained was further analyzed using regression analysis and results were found to be statistically significant with Ñ = 0.0032 indicating higher acceptance of vaccine with increase in the number of risk factors among family members.
Assessment of vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 vaccines and evaluation of factors associated with it, among the residents of North Maharashtra Region, India