Mental imagery related to vaccines may influence pregnant women’s uptake

The mental images that pop up when pregnant women consider vaccinations during pregnancy may affect their opinion and uptake of the vaccines, according to a study published in Social Science & Medicine.

Investigators from the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom led a two-part longitudinal study involving 411 pregnant women seeking care at a large public hospital in Western Australia. 

Participants completed a survey evaluating vaccine hesitancy and uptake during pregnancy for COVID-19, influenza, and pertussis (whooping cough), and researchers checked official immunization records at the end of pregnancy to see if they received the vaccines.

To determine vaccine- or disease-related mental imagery, such as infant illness or harm, the team asked the women questions about their risk perceptions and whether their mind conjured these images.

Many more received pertussis than other vaccines

In total, 38% of pregnant women reported mainly negative vaccine- and disease-related mental images formulated from personal experiences, the news, and social media. 

Many older adults who died of COVID weren’t close to death before infection, study suggests

About 28% of older people in England who died of COVID-19 in the first 2.5 years of the pandemic would likely, if uninfected, have lived at least another five years, a new model-based analysis estimates.

Researchers from the government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in London led the study, which was published late last week in PLOS One. The team used linked health data from March 2020 to September 2022 to estimate the survival of nearly 16 million English people aged 65 years and older had they not contracted COVID-19.

“Critics of the pandemic response have suggested that those that died were mostly very vulnerable and close to death,” they noted. “If this were true, the economic impact of measures to control the pandemic could not be justified in terms of any benefits in controlling mortality.”

This study, they said, differed from previous research on COVID-19 excess mortality in that it considered factors such as underlying illnesses, vaccination status, and pandemic wave.

COVID cut life expectancy by 4 to 5 years

Women and men would probably have lived another 4.8 (interquartile range [IQR, 1.5 to 16) years and 4.4(IQR, 1.4 to 12.6) years, respectively, had they not contracted COVID-19. The survival difference was greatest in those aged 65 to 69 (median, 14.4 years [IQR, 0.5 to 38.8] for women and 9.9 years [IQR, 1.1 to 26.2] for men) and during the second pandemic wave (September 2020 to March 2021).

In future pandemics, real-time modelling of displacement would be helpful in assessing the mortality impact of the pandemic.

“We estimate that 23.5% of deaths aged 65 and over would not have been expected to survive more than one year,” the researchers wrote. “However, 28% would have been expected to have survived for 5 years or more had they not had the disease.”

“Life expectancy of those who died with COVID-19 was substantial and, based on our analysis of vulnerability, most of those who died at ages 65 and over are unlikely to have been close to death,” they added. “In future pandemics, real-time modelling of displacement would be helpful in assessing the mortality impact of the pandemic.”