“Intention of vaccination” attracted the attention of a student from the Universitas Indonesia (UI). Tri Widianti, a student of the Master’s program at the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia (FTUI) conducted research on the determinants of the Covid-19 vaccination intention of the Indonesian people through research entitled “ID 67 COVID-19 Vaccination Intention in Indonesia: A Comprehensive Conceptual Model”, with lecturers Department of Industrial Engineering FTUI Dr. rer. pol. Romadhani Ardi. ST., MT., and Himma Firdaus from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
Thanks to this research, Tri won third place in the IEOM Graduates Student Paper Competition Award from the International Industrial Engineering and Operations Management (IEOM) 2022 conference. This conference was held in Orlando, California, United States.
The World Health Organization (WHO 2022) puts the number of victims of the Covid-19 pandemic at more than 6 million people worldwide. This led to a drastic economic decline (8%), and a sharp increase in the unemployment rate (3.22%) (World Bank 2021). This impact is also felt in Indonesia. One of the steps taken to handle the pandemic by the Government of Indonesia is to promote a vaccination program.
In the process, two problems arose, first regarding the issue of the Covid-19 virus variant and the type of vaccine. Of the two vaccines that have been implemented, it turned out to be less effective against Omicron. Second, some people refuse to be vaccinated.
“Data from the Ministry of Health in 2021 shows that vaccination acceptance among Indonesians is still low (64.8%). 27.6% of the population still hesitated to accept or refuse to be vaccinated, and the rest (7.6%) refused to be vaccinated. The reasons for refusing vaccinations included related to vaccine safety, effectiveness, side effects, religious beliefs, belief in conspiracy theories, social norms, costs, vaccine benefits, trust issues, and lack of vaccine knowledge,” said Tri, who participated in the IEOM competition in June 2022 in Orlando.
“This study proposes a model that explains the determinants of vaccination intention. The model was developed based on the integration between Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Conspiracy Theory (CT), Knowledge, Attitude/Beliefs, Practice Theory (KAPT), Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), and Health Belief Model (HBM). We offer twenty-one propositions that explain the relationship between vaccination intentions and thirteen predictor variables,” explained Romadhani Ardi, who currently serves as Manager of Student Affairs, Research, and Community Service FTUI.
“The trial was conducted as a preliminary study before the main study. The main study was conducted in Banten Province, Indonesia. Partially Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the model. The results of the study found that perceptions of self-efficacy, attitudes, and subjective norms had a significant and direct effect on vaccination intention. In addition, the perceived benefits indirectly affect vaccination intentions through attitudes,” said Tri.
The Dean of FTUI, Prof. Dr. Ir. Heri Hermansyah, ST., M.Eng., IPU expressed his hopes for the research conducted by Tri and Romadhani Ardi. “Even though this pandemic is starting to subside in Indonesia, we still have a lot of homework to do together. Hopefully, this research can provide input for the government to develop a strategy to promote vaccine programs to achieve vaccination targets for the Indonesian people. I hope there will be a continuation of this research, especially related to people’s behavior towards the Covid vaccine.”
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Public Communication Bureau
Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia