Trust and attitudes toward vaccination: Study report

We focus on the effects of trust that people have in scientists on attitudes toward vaccination globally. We analysed data from Wellcome Global Monitor (Wellcome Trust, 2018), a survey conducted with more than 140,000 people in more than 140 countries. In our analysis, we focused on worldwide, European, and Polish data. We assumed that higher levels of trust in scientists are related to more positive beliefs and attitudes towards vaccines. We also expected that the level of education modifies the effects in a way that the higher the education, the more positive attitudes towards vaccines. We found that trust in scientists was related to more positive attitudes toward vaccination, which was further modified by education (education exacerbated the effects of trust). That was, however, not the case for Poland, where we only found the main effect of trust but the effects of education were insignificant.