The impact of COVID-19 vaccination for mental well-being

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

November 15, 2022

Summary:

We examine the impact of vaccination against Covid-19 for mental health. Our estimates suggest that vaccination led to a significant and substantive improvement in mental health. These positive impacts were however concentrated on those most at risk of hospitalisation and death from Covid-19, namely older and clinically vulnerable groups. Our proposed explanation is that in the absence of vaccination, anxiety about contracting COVID-19 has a deleterious impact on the mental health of this cohort. On the other hand, vaccination was much less impactful for the mental health of those least at risk from Covid-19. This may help to explain vaccine hesitancy amongst young people. For this group, a lack of uptake may be principally due to a lack of perceived benefits (and indeed perceived costs) for their own well-being as opposed to vaccine hesitancy.

Published in

European Economic Review

Volume

Volume: 150:104293

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104293

ISSN

142921

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

Under a Creative Commons license


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