Background: Saudi Arabia has taken unprecedented and stringent preventive and precautionary measures against COVID-19 to control its spread, safeguard citizens and ensure their well-being. Public adherence to preventive measures is influenced by their knowledge and attitude toward COVID-19. This study investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the Saudi public, toward COVID-19, during the pandemic. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, using data collected via an online self-reported questionnaire, from 3,388 participants. To assess the differences in mean scores, and identify factors associated with knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward COVID-19, the data were run through univariate and multivariable regression analyses, respectively. Results: The majority of the study participants were knowledgeable about COVID-19. The mean COVID-19 knowledge score was 17.96 (SD = 2.24, range: 3–22), indicating a high level of knowledge. The mean score for attitude was 28.23 (SD = 2.76, range: 6–30), indicating optimistic attitudes. The mean score for practices was 4.34 (SD = 0.87, range: 0–5), indicating good practices. However, the results showed that men have less knowledge, less optimistic attitudes, and less good practice toward COVID-19, than women. We also found that older adults are likely to have better knowledge and practices, than younger people. Conclusions: Our finding suggests that targeted health education interventions should be directed to this particular vulnerable population, who may be at increased risk of contracting COVID-19. For example, COVID-19 knowledge may increase significantly if health education programs are specifically targeted at men.

Objective: This study aims to determine the acceptability of a COVID-19 vaccine among healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia and the factors affecting their intention to accept the vaccine.Methods: The study used data from an online cross-sectional survey that was conducted in Saudi Arabia between 8 December 2020 and 14 December 2020. This study employed bivariate and multivariable regression analyses. The bivariate was used to describe and tabulate the frequency of all the variables, including the sociodemographic characteristics, the risk perception and the acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccination and a chi-squared test of independence was calculated. Multivariable logistic regression models were employed to examine and identify the factors associated with an intention to have the COVID-19 vaccination and the factors associated with its immediate acceptance.Results: Of the total of 736 healthcare workers who began the online questionnaire, 673 completed it (a 91.44% completion rate). Among the study participants, 50.52% were willing to have the COVID-19 vaccine, of which 49.71% intended to have the vaccine as soon as it becomes available in the country, while 50.29% would delay until the vaccine's safety is confirmed. Being a male healthcare worker, perceiving a high risk of infection, and believing that the COVID-19 vaccine should be compulsory for all citizens and residents in the country increased the probability of intention to vaccinate against COVID-19 and the probability of accepting the COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible.Conclusion: This study calls for more health-related education among healthcare workers to alleviate any fears that might be associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

To investigate the associated factors underlying vaccination intentions for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), an online cross-sectional survey was conducted among adults 18 years or over in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected between 8 and 14 December 2020. A logistic regression analysis was employed to examine and identify the variables associated with vaccination intentions for COVID-19, with the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) also calculated. A total of 2137 respondents completed the questionnaire. Overall, about 48% of Saudi adults were willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Participants had stronger intentions to receive a vaccination if they resided in the southern region (OR: 1.95; 95% CI: 1.21–3.14), received the seasonal influenza vaccination in the past (OR: 1.52; 95% CI: 1.17–1.97), believed in mandatory COVID-19 vaccination (OR: 45.07; 95% CI: 31.91–63.65), or reported high levels of concern about contracting COVID-19 (OR: 1.91; 95% CI: 1.29–2.81). Participants were less likely to have an intention to be vaccinated if they had a history of vaccine refusal (OR: 0.28; 95% CI: 0.19–0.40). The low acceptance rate among the Saudi population should be targeted with multifaceted interventions aimed at raising awareness and emphasizing the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Out of pocket (OOP) health spending can potentially expose households to risk of incurring large medical bills, and this may impact on their welfare. This work investigates the effect of catastrophic OOP on the incidence and depth of poverty in Malawi. The paper is based on data that was collected from 12,271 households that were interviewed during the third Malawi integrated household survey (IHS-3). The paper considered a household to have incurred a catastrophic health expenditure if the share of health expenditure in the household’s non-food expenditure was greater than a given threshold ranging between 10 and 40%. As we increase the threshold from 10 to 40%, we found that OOP drives between 9.37 and 0.73% of households into catastrophic health expenditure. The extent by which households exceed a given threshold (mean overshoot) drops from 1.01% of expenditure to 0.08%, as the threshold increased. When OOP is accounted for in poverty estimation, additional 0.93% of the population is considered poor and the poverty gap rises by almost 2.54%. Our analysis suggests that people in rural areas and middle income households are at higher risk of facing catastrophic health expenditure. We conclude that catastrophic health expenditure increases the incidence and depth of poverty in Malawi. This calls for the introduction of social insurance system to minimize the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure especially to the rural and middle income population.

Socio-economic Inequality in Comprehensive Knowledge about HIV in Malawi