Table 3.

Reasons for non-use of pandemic influenza vaccines

Reasons for not taking the pandemic influenza vaccine (personally or for someone in the household)a	Overall (%)	Area of residence (%)					Sex (%)
		Urban middle-income	Urban low-resource	Rural more accessible	Rural less accessible	P valueb	Female	Male	P valueb
	n = 436	n = 102	n = 113	n = 113	n = 108		n = 221	n = 215
Low risk attributed to influenza	55.0	46.1	57.5	60.2	55.6		49.8	60.5	*
Sufficient precautionary measures already taken	15.8	29.4	25.7	6.2	2.8	***	15.8	15.8
Access (where and how to get it)	14.7	7.8	9.7	17.7	23.1	**	11.8	17.7
Unaware of vaccine	11.7	2.0	13.3	12.4	18.5	***	12.7	10.7
Cost of vaccine	5.0	4.9	8.0	3.5	3.7		5.9	4.2

^aResponse to the question: “For you or anyone in your household who did not take the vaccine for swine flu, were there any particular reasons not to take it? Can you explain why some (or all) did not take it?” were coded into categories described in the table. Multiple categories could have been mentioned and coded for each respondent. 7.3% of respondents did not provide a reason. Categories reported by less than 5% are not presented. They included: lack of encouragement by health care provider (3.9%), other miscellaneous (3.4%), vaccine shortage due to high demand (2.1%), no time to take the vaccine (1.6%), doubts about vaccine effectiveness (0.9%), and general avoidance of medication (0.9%).

^bFisher's exact test was used to compare proportions across area of residence and sex: *p≤0.05, **p≤0.01, ***p≤0.001. No differences were observed across age groups and they have hence not been presented.