Design and Cross-Cultural Invariance of the COVID-19 Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale (COVID-VCBS) in 13 Latin American Countries

Tomás Caycho-Rodríguez, Pablo D. Valencia, José Ventura-León, Lindsey W. Vilca, Carlos Carbajal-León, Mario Reyes-Bossio, Michael White, Claudio Rojas-Jara, Roberto Polanco-Carrasco, Miguel Gallegos, Mauricio Cervigni, Pablo Martino, Diego Alejandro Palacios, Rodrigo Moreta-Herrera, Antonio Samaniego-Pinho, Marlon Elías Lobos-Rivera, Andrés Buschiazzo Figares, Diana Ximena Puerta-Cortés, Ibraín Enrique Corrales-Reyes, Raymundo CalderónBismarck Pinto Tapia, Walter L. Arias Gallegos, Olimpia Petzold

Research output: Contribution to journalOriginal Articlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Aims: Over the past 2 years, the vaccine conspiracy beliefs construct has been used in a number of different studies. These publications have assessed the determinants and outcomes of vaccine conspiracy beliefs using, in some cases, pooled data from different countries, and compared the results across these contexts. However, studies often do not consider measurement invariance as a necessary requirement for comparative analyses. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the cross-cultural MI of the COVID-19 Vaccine Conspiracy Beliefs Scale (COVID-VCBS) in 12 Latin American countries. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory analysis and alignment method were applied to test measurement invariance in a large number of groups. Results: The COVID-VCBS showed robust psychometric properties and measurement invariance for both factor loadings and crosstabs. Also, a higher level of acceptance of conspiracy beliefs about vaccines is necessary to respond to higher response categories. Similarly, greater acceptance of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines was related to a lower intention to be vaccinated. Conclusion: The results allow for improved understanding of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines in the countries assessed; furthermore, they provide researchers and practitioners with an invariant measure that they can use in cross-cultural studies in Latin America. However, further studies are needed to test invariance in other countries, with the goal of developing a truly international measure of conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 vaccines.

Original languageAmerican English
Article number908720
JournalFrontiers in Public Health
Volume10
DOIs
StateIndexed - 14 Jun 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Caycho-Rodríguez, Valencia, Ventura-León, Vilca, Carbajal-León, Reyes-Bossio, White, Rojas-Jara, Polanco-Carrasco, Gallegos, Cervigni, Martino, Palacios, Moreta-Herrera, Samaniego-Pinho, Lobos-Rivera, Figares, Puerta-Cortés, Corrales-Reyes, Calderón, Tapia, Arias Gallegos and Petzold.

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Latin America
  • conspiracy beliefs
  • invariance
  • vaccines

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