Vaccine development and availability are not the only obstacles to controlling a pandemic. A sufficient share of the population must be vaccinated to reach herd immunity: the point at which enough of the population is immune such that person to person spread is unlikely. Herd immunity allows for individuals who cannot be vaccinated to be protected from disease.

However, as of July 2021, the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States has declined and it is unclear whether herd immunity might be reached in the near future. A number of strategies are being considered to encourage more individuals to get vaccinated, such as door-to- door outreach and setting up clinics in workplaces. Studies investigating factors associated with vaccine hesitancy are currently underway; the results of these studies will inform strategy behind vaccination efforts.

One study conducted in July 2020, before COVID-19 vaccines were available, investigated self- reported willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccination by asking survey participants to consider several hypothetical vaccines with various features. Researchers collected data from 1,971 partic- ipants via a 15-minute online survey, presenting respondents with 10 hypothetical vaccines and asking how likely or unlikely they would be to receive each vaccine. For example, one vaccine participants were asked to consider was described as being 70% effective, approved and licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration, developed in the United States, and endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden. The survey also included questions about demographic characteristics. Sur- vey respondents were recruited from a pool of US adults by a survey sampling company.

Data from the study are in the file vax.Rdata. The descriptions of the variables are as follows.

Variable work_status work_home covid_future f1u_vaccine Description recent change in employment status ability to work from home view about where the US stands in the COVID19 outbreak past frequency of receiving u vaccine age age in years ideology political ideology pa rty3 political party gender gender income annual income range in USD education highest level of education completed vax_safety opinion on vaccine safety in general ethnicity race/ ethnicity likely vaccine acceptance score