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COVID-19 vaccination in Croatia and some possible causes of low rates, especially in Dalmatia

The paper aims to investigate the potential causes of low vaccination rates against the COVID- 19 disease in Croatia, with the emphasis on the residents of Dalmatia. According to the Croatian Institute of Public Health, the vaccination coverage in Croatia was 54.5% with the first and 48.4% with the second dose of the vaccine (HZJZ, 28 February 2022). This research was conducted on a sample of 1136 respondents (average age 43.4 years, 79% women), who participated in the longitudinal survey on well- being. The survey was conducted online during the summer-autumn 2021. The vaccination rate in this sample was higher than national data (63.3% of participants received at least one dose). The logistic regression model explained 30.3% of the variability of the decision to vaccinate based on sociodemographic characteristics of respondents (age, gender, level of education, socioeconomic status), subjective health assessments, attitudes towards pandemics, pandemic fear scale and subjective measures of coping with the pandemic. The significant predictors were age, gender, level of education and the extent to which infection with COVID-19 was perceived as a dangerous disease. Older and more educated respondents had a slightly greater preference for vaccination, while the best predictor of vaccination decisions was the perceived danger of the disease. Additionally, in a small sample of residents from four Dalmatian counties (N = 126), we tried to investigate the potential causes of their low vaccination coverage (Split-Dalmatia County vaccination coverage was 44.3% with the first and 38.3% with the second dose). Applying the same logistic model, it turned out that the only significant predictor in the Dalmatian subsample was the attitude towards the danger of the disease. This finding emphasized the importance of this attitude for deciding whether to vaccinate or not. The paper further discusses public health policies in the context of possible acting on these attitudes.

vaccination, COVID-19, Croatia, Dalmatia

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