Seventeenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Covid-19 is one of the most devastating pandemics humans have ever experienced. As a result, individuals around the world are encouraged to take up health behaviors such as to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Taking up the Covid-19 vaccination is especially encouraged as it enhances community-level health, by which one’s health beliefs and sense of moral responsibility might play a role in the decision making. In our mixed-design study, we explored how individuals’ health beliefs (as conceptualized by Health Belief Model) and moral responsibility interplay to influence their status of Covid-19 vaccination. We surveyed 443 Malaysians regarding their beliefs related to Covid-19, the vaccination, and their sense of moral responsibility to see if it predicts their vaccination status. Our findings showed a perplexing relationship between the respondents’ health beliefs and their vaccination status, where the low level of perceived threat of Covid-19 as a disease predicts a positive vaccination status. In addition, we found that moral responsibility does not significantly predict vaccination status of the respondents. Our qualitative data seem to point to the possibility of the disparate properties between the views towards the Covid-19 as a disease and the vaccination itself.