PREFERENCES AND WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY FOR LYME DISEASE VACCINES IN THE UNITED STATES: A LATENT CLASS APPROACH
Author(s)
Marco Boeri, PhD1, Joshua Coulter, MA2, Stephanie Duench, PhD3, Hannah L Gould, PhD2, Brett Hauber, PhD2, Divya Mohan, PhD1, Justin O'Hagan, ScD3, Matthew Wallace, MA4, Holly Yu, MSPH3.
1OPEN Health, London, United Kingdom, 2Pfizer, New York, NY, USA, 3Pfizer, Collegeville, PA, USA, 4OPEN Health, New York, NY, USA.
1OPEN Health, London, United Kingdom, 2Pfizer, New York, NY, USA, 3Pfizer, Collegeville, PA, USA, 4OPEN Health, New York, NY, USA.
OBJECTIVES: Lyme disease (LD) affects almost 500,000 individuals in the United States (US) annually, yet no vaccine is available. We aimed to quantify preferences for LD vaccine attributes, evaluate preference heterogeneity, and estimate willingness-to-pay among potential LD vaccine recipients in the US.
METHODS: A web-based discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was administered to 2,000 adults living in high LD incidence states and neighboring states. Each DCE task presented two hypothetical vaccines that varied in efficacy (45%-90%) and risks of mild systemic adverse events (AE, 15%-50%), injection-site reactions (30%-90%), and severe AE requiring hospitalization (0%-1%) along with a no vaccine (opt-out) alternative. Preferences and preference heterogeneity were analyzed using a 4-class latent class (LC) model in which one class was constrained to capture vaccine seeking choices (i.e., avoiding the opt-out alternative) that were not influenced by the efficacy and risk attribute levels in the vaccine profiles (i.e., attribute non-attendance). Individual characteristics associated with class membership from the LC model were evaluated. A contingent valuation (CV) exercise used vaccine profiles from the DCE to estimate willingness-to-pay for vaccines and vaccine attributes.
RESULTS: Respondents largely preferred being vaccinated over the no vaccine alternative; 66.1% of the sample did not chose the opt-out alternative in any DCE question and average membership probability of the vaccine-seeking class was 41.2%. The remaining classes included respondents for whom efficacy was more important (29.1%), avoiding severe AE risk was most important (16.1%), and all attributes were approximately equally important (13.6%). On average, WTP for the worst (best) vaccine profile in the study was $268.40 ($373.74).
CONCLUSIONS: On average, respondents showed a strong desire to be vaccinated against LD. The importance of vaccine efficacy and safety significantly varied across respondents and WTP varied with vaccine characteristics. A future LD vaccine, even one with modest efficacy, may be well-received by the public.
METHODS: A web-based discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was administered to 2,000 adults living in high LD incidence states and neighboring states. Each DCE task presented two hypothetical vaccines that varied in efficacy (45%-90%) and risks of mild systemic adverse events (AE, 15%-50%), injection-site reactions (30%-90%), and severe AE requiring hospitalization (0%-1%) along with a no vaccine (opt-out) alternative. Preferences and preference heterogeneity were analyzed using a 4-class latent class (LC) model in which one class was constrained to capture vaccine seeking choices (i.e., avoiding the opt-out alternative) that were not influenced by the efficacy and risk attribute levels in the vaccine profiles (i.e., attribute non-attendance). Individual characteristics associated with class membership from the LC model were evaluated. A contingent valuation (CV) exercise used vaccine profiles from the DCE to estimate willingness-to-pay for vaccines and vaccine attributes.
RESULTS: Respondents largely preferred being vaccinated over the no vaccine alternative; 66.1% of the sample did not chose the opt-out alternative in any DCE question and average membership probability of the vaccine-seeking class was 41.2%. The remaining classes included respondents for whom efficacy was more important (29.1%), avoiding severe AE risk was most important (16.1%), and all attributes were approximately equally important (13.6%). On average, WTP for the worst (best) vaccine profile in the study was $268.40 ($373.74).
CONCLUSIONS: On average, respondents showed a strong desire to be vaccinated against LD. The importance of vaccine efficacy and safety significantly varied across respondents and WTP varied with vaccine characteristics. A future LD vaccine, even one with modest efficacy, may be well-received by the public.
Conference/Value in Health Info
2026-11, ISPOR Europe 2026, Vienna, Austria
Value in Health, Volume 29, Issue 12S
Code
PCR148
Topic
Epidemiology & Public Health, Methodological & Statistical Research, Patient-Centered Research
Disease
No Additional Disease & Conditions/Specialized Treatment Areas, Vaccines