KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor: Views on the U.S. Role In Global COVID-19 Response

As of March 17, 2022, the U.S. has provided funding and in-kind support for the global COVID-19 response, including delivering half a billion donated COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 110 countries, with more donated doses to come. These efforts have been part of the Biden administration’s plan to usher in an end to the pandemic emergency, reduce the impact of COVID globally, and help reduce the chance of new, more-transmissible variants from emerging. In November 2021, polling from the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found the public was generally supportive of the U.S. helping to provide vaccines to other countries, especially when people were informed that the U.S. has enough of its own vaccine supply.

The latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor (conducted February 9-21, 2022¹ ) continues to find that the public is largely supportive of the U.S. role in global vaccine distribution, as well as other response efforts including the distribution of masks and COVID-19 rapid tests. A plurality of adults think the U.S. is doing about the right amount to make sure people in other countries have access to COVID-19 vaccines (42%) or control the spread of COVID-19 in other countries by providing masks by providing masks or rapid tests (42%). Smaller shares say the U.S. is doing “too much” or “not enough” on both of these efforts. Around a quarter say the U.S. isn’t doing enough to make sure people in other countries have access to vaccines (28%) or to control the spread of COVID-19 in other countries (27%). About one in five say the U.S. is doing “too much” on both of these fronts.

Overall, the public thinks the Biden administration could do more to combat COVID-19 misinformation in other countries. A previous KFF report found widespread belief in COVID-19 misinformation in the U.S.  and the WHO has said COVID misinformation was a major factor fueling the pandemic throughout the world. Around four in ten (41%) say the U.S. isn’t doing enough to combat misinformation about COVID-19 in other countries, while 28% of adults say the U.S. is doing about the right amount and 18% say we’re doing too much.

There are strong partisan differences in views of U.S. efforts to combat COVID-19 overseas. Overall, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the U.S. “isn’t doing enough” on any of the global COVID-19 response areas asked about in the survey, while Republicans are more likely to say the U.S. is “doing too much.”  More than one-third of Democrats (37%) say the U.S. is “not doing enough” to make sure people in other countries have access to COVID-19 vaccines, while a similar share of Republicans (36%) say the U.S. is “doing too much” on this effort. Similarly, a majority of Democrats say the U.S. is doing “about the right amount” to control the spread of COVID-19 in other countries by providing masks or rapid tests (55%), while another third say the country isn’t doing enough (32%). Less than one in ten Democrats say the U.S. is doing “too much” (7%). This is compared to nearly half of Republicans (45%) who say the U.S. is doing “too much” while one-third of Republicans (32%) think the U.S. is doing the “right amount,” and 16% say we’re “not doing enough.”

The partisan divide is somewhat smaller when it comes to the U.S. role in combatting misinformation worldwide. Around half of Democrats say the U.S. “isn’t doing enough” to combat the spread of COVID-19 misinformation in other countries (46%), as do 47% of independents and 30% of Republicans. Yet, one-third of Republicans say the U.S. is doing “too much” to combat misinformation.

This KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). The survey was conducted February 9-21, 2022, among a nationally representative random digit dial telephone sample of 1,502 adults ages 18 and older (including interviews from 301 Hispanic adults and 279 non-Hispanic Black adults), living in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii (note: persons without a telephone could not be included in the random selection process). Phone numbers used for this study were randomly generated from cell phone and landline sampling frames, with an overlapping frame design, and disproportionate stratification aimed at reaching Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black respondents as well as those living in areas with high rates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Stratification was based on incidence of the race/ethnicity subgroups and vaccine hesitancy within each frame. High hesitancy was defined as living in the top 25% of counties as far as the share of the population not intending to get vaccinated based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.  The sample also included 130 respondents reached by calling back respondents that had previously completed an interview on the KFF Tracking poll at least nine months ago. Another 87 interviews were completed with respondents who had previously completed an interview on the SSRS Omnibus poll (and other RDD polls) and identified as Hispanic (n=25; including 1 in Spanish) or non-Hispanic Black (n=62). Computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted by landline (172) and cell phone (1,330; including 1,017 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish by SSRS of Glen Mills, PA. To efficiently obtain a sample of lower-income and non-White respondents, the sample also included an oversample of prepaid (pay-as-you-go) telephone numbers (25% of the cell phone sample consisted of prepaid numbers) Both the random digit dial landline and cell phone samples were provided by Marketing Systems Group (MSG). For the landline sample, respondents were selected by asking for the youngest adult male or female currently at home based on a random rotation. If no one of that gender was available, interviewers asked to speak with the youngest adult of the opposite gender. For the cell phone sample, interviews were conducted with the adult who answered the phone. KFF paid for all costs associated with the survey.

The combined landline and cell phone sample was weighted to balance the sample demographics to match estimates for the national population using data from the March 2021 U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) on sex, age, education, race, Hispanic origin, region, and marital status, within race-groups, along with data from the 2010 Census on population density. The sample was also weighted to match current patterns of telephone use using data from the January-June 2021 National Health Interview Survey. The sample is also weighted to account for the possibility of nonresponse, including partisan nonresponse, based on previous months of KFF national polls and this current survey. The weight takes into account the fact that respondents with both a landline and cell phone have a higher probability of selection in the combined sample and also adjusts for the household size for the landline sample, and design modifications, namely, the oversampling of potentially undocumented respondents and of prepaid cell phone numbers, as well as the likelihood of non-response for the recontacted sample. All statistical tests of significance account for the effect of weighting.

The margin of sampling error including the design effect for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Numbers of respondents and margins of sampling error for key subgroups are shown in the table below. For results based on other subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher. Sample sizes and margins of sampling error for other subgroups are available by request. Sampling error is only one of many potential sources of error and there may be other unmeasured error in this or any other public opinion poll. Kaiser Family Foundation public opinion and survey research is a charter member of the Transparency Initiative of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

This work was supported in part by grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF (an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation), the Ford Foundation, and the Molina Family Foundation. We value our funders. KFF maintains full editorial control over all of its policy analysis, polling, and journalism activities.

1. The poll was conducted prior to the U.S. House of Representatives passing a spending bill that does not include any global COVID-19 funding and the White House announcement that there is no funding for additional efforts. ↩︎