Communicating on Vaccine Benefit-Risk Ratios: A Discrete-Choice Experiment among Health Care Professionals and the General Population in France

The notion of benefit-risk ratio (BRR) of vaccination appears to be taken into account in vaccine decisions by university-degree HCSWs, but not by the general public. Mentioning a favorable BRR could imply that the vaccine is not safe and reduce vaccine motivation.Mentioning qualitative attributes of BRR surrounding disease frequency and severity, and indirect protection effects, strongly affected theoretical vaccine decisions in all participants, irrespective of professional categories.Expected vaccine acceptance increased by 40% among the general population sample if disease risk was presented as high, and expected vaccine coverage exceeded 50% in scenarios with high disease risk.Among those refusing vaccination in all vaccine scenarios, only a high risk of developing the disease decreased their certitude to refuse vaccination. This further underlines the importance of disease risk perception on vaccine decision making, including among persons who a priori are unlikely to accept vaccination.