Exploring how people who are in prison make decisions about vaccines
A focus group study with prisoners and staff in Scottish prisons

Background

The introduction of the UK COVID-19 vaccination programme in December 2020 has been associated with a reduction in the incidence of severe illness, hospitalisations and deaths associated with COVID-19. Prisons are high risk settings where transmission of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases may occur more easily due to a large population living in close proximity, with infrastructure that can make mitigating measures such as physical distancing and maintaining optimum ventilation challenging. People who are in prison experience higher rates of chronic illness than the general population which increases the risk of more severe clinical outcomes associated with COVID-19 infection.

Delivering vaccination programmes in the prison setting presents an opportunity to overcome barriers related to access in a population who may otherwise have low engagement with health services. The uptake of the primary dose was comparable to or exceeded uptake in controls from the general population matched for age, sex, SIMD status and previous COVID infection but declined with the second and booster doses. This study aimed to explore the factors that influence how people who are in prison make decisions about vaccines.