Fifty-eight percent of Russians do not make plans to get vaccinated against flu this year; the main reason behind that is their satisfaction with the state of personal health.

MOSCOW, October 7, 2019. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the data of a survey devoted to Russian attitudes towards vaccination.

Good or harm?

For most of Russians vaccines are an effective way to combat infections, and they do more good than harm (57%). This opinion is mainly supported by younger respondents aged 18-24 (69%), and respondents aged 60 and over (62%) as well as residents of cities with a population of 100,000-500,000 inhabitants (62%).

Every fifth considers that in general vaccines are useless and do to humans neither bad nor harm (23%). This stance is shared both by inhabitants of large cities with a population of 500,000-950,000 inhabitants (31%) and small cities of less than 100,000 inhabitants (28%).

Get vaccinated or get worried?

Most of Russians have been vaccinated against flu (62%): basically persons aged 18-24 (87%), residents of cities with a population of 500,000-950,000 inhabitants (65%) and rural area residents (66%). The percentage of those who have never been vaccinated is 36%: mostly respondents aged 35-44 (42%), 45-59 (40%), residents of Moscow and St Petersburg (45%), million cities (39%) and cities with a population of 100,000-500,000 inhabitants (38%).

This year about one-third of Russians (28%) make plans to get vaccinated against flu viruses: basically Russians aged 18-24 (48%), 60 and over (31%) and rural area residents (35%).

More than half of Russians do not make plans to get vaccinated against flu viruses this year (58%); they are predominantly men (61%), residents of large cities Moscow and St Petersburg (65%), million cities (65%), cities with a population of 500,000-950,000 inhabitants (63%), as well as those aged 35-44 (60%) and 45-59 (64%). Reasons behind refusal are as follows:  satisfaction with the state of personal health resulted in a confidence that vaccines are not important (29%), doubt that vaccines are effective (23%), or anxiety related to negative impacts on health and immune system (20%). Every tenth does not trust vaccines (11%). A further 8% have contraindication to vaccination; 6% have not experienced that; 5% hope that they will not get sick without vaccines.

VCIOM-Sputnik survey was conducted on September 27, 2019. The survey involved 1,600 Russians aged 18 and over. The survey was telephone-based and carried out using stratified dual-frame random sample based on a complete list of landline and mobile phone numbers operating in Russia. The data were weighted according to selection probability and social and demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.5%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.

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