Survey data for COVID-19 vaccine preference analysis in the United Arab Emirates

In response to the call for interdisciplinary research on the potential effects of the coronavirus pandemic [1], this article presents a novel data set on individuals’ COVID-19 vaccine preferences in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The menu of our stated preference survey questionnaire is framed based on the World Health Organization's (WHO) SAGE working group on immunization developed matrix of vaccine determinants [2], which was itself informed by a systematic review of peer reviewed and grey literature, and by the expertise of the working group. Our survey was designed in a bilingual (Arabic and English) format, using Google Forms platform and delivered to respondents aged 18 years and older using the snowball sampling method between July 4th and August 4th 2020, gathering a total of 1109 responses. Study participants were recruited across all seven emirates of the UAE (see Fig. 1). As presented in the conceptual framework (see Fig. 2), the data set comprises (i) respondents socio-economic and demographic information, (ii) respondents willingness to spend time, and money to get the Covid-19 vaccine, and (iii) the vaccine determinants identified by the WHO's SAGE working group on immunization.


Specifications
Infectious Diseases Prevention Specific subject area Health Economics. Econometric models (Random Utility Model) applied to stated infectious diseases' vaccine preference data to understand the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine decision. Type of data Table  How data were acquired Through a Survey (see supplementary files for a copy of the survey questionnaire, along with the web link to its online access) Data format Analysed, CSV and R formatted Data frames Parameters for data collection The target population is the set of all adults (18 years and older) living in any of the seven emirates of the UAE. No other parameters were used for the data collection. Description of data collection Data collection was conducted through an online questionnaire, which was delivered through snowball sampling methods to individual respondents through email, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams. Data source location The data collection covered the whole of the UAE national territory, which is made of seven emirates (See figure 1

Value of the Data
• The data will be useful for researchers who want to investigate the determinants and the extent of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance/hesitancy/skepticism in the UAE. • The data will also assist with studies interested in addressing the direct (financial) and indirect (time) barriers to COVID-19 vaccine program effectiveness in the UAE. • The data will further assist with studies seeking to identify the determinants of individuals' adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures in the UAE. • The data could also serve researchers interested in studying the socio-professional and familial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UAE. • Researchers interested in the influence of media on individuals' attitudes towards  in the UAE, would also find this data very handy. • Overall, the data framework presented could also assist researchers to replicate data collection in any other national setting to address any of the above mentioned questions, including cross-country comparative analyses.

Data Description
The recent emergence and global spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, widely referred to as "COVID-19", has posed significant threats to public health systems, and exacerbated national economic conditions worldwide [3 , 4] . Despite its significance for designing an effective vaccination program against the COVID-19 pandemic, to date no data manuscript addresses nor provides data for analyzing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy (or preference more broadly) within a health/economic system.
On March 2012 however, the WHO's SAGE group on immunization developed a matrix of vaccine demand determinants, categorized into contextual, individual & group, and vaccine-specific [5] . The menu of survey questions used to collect our currently shared COVID-19 vaccine preference data is framed based on this matrix. The link to our online survey questionnaire, along with a PDF copy of the actual questionnaire, and the csv format of the analyzed responses to the questionnaire are all provided as supplementary files to this manuscript. Although applied to COVID-19 vaccine preference analysis in the UAE, our presented data framework [see figure (2)] is general combining three key research paradigms in the scientific literature: the technology acceptance model (TAM), the framework on vaccine skepticism, and random utility theory. Fig. 1 below shows the geographical map along with the frequency count, and relative percent frequency count of respondents across the seven emirates of the UAE. It can be noted that our data contains 1109 respondents, 796 (71.78%) of which are from Abu Dhabi, 129 (11.63%) from Dubai, 80 (7.21%) from Sharjah, 13 (1.17%) from Ras Al Khaimah, 50 (4.51%) from Ajman, 34 (3.07%) from Fujairah, and finally 7 (0.63%) from Umm al Quwain.
The recorded vaccine decision outcome are described in the Random Utility based conceptual framework in Fig. 2 , which shows the relationships between the different collected variables. The framework suggests that observed determinants of vaccine utility combine with unobserved determinants to influence individual's subjectively perceived utility from vaccination; this latter in turn identify the chosen position by the individual on the vaccine outcome continuum (Stated vaccine preference).
In this representation however, given that the stated time each individual is willing to spend (indirect cost), and the amount of money the individual is willing to spend to get the vaccine (direct cost) are both under the control of the individual decision maker, they are necessarily endogenous determinants of the vaccine decision outcome. This implicitly means bidirectional relationships would prevail between these two determinants on the one hand, and the vaccine decision outcome on the other hand. Such bidirectional relationships (endogeneity) would have to be taken into account in any statistical modeling of the vaccine decision outcome.
The data collected based on this conceptual framework, through the online questionnaire include the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the participants (see table 1 below); the personal and peer influences on individual perceived COVID-19 vac-  (see table 4 below); and finally the vaccine decision outcome variable, along with the two endogenous vaccine decision determinants (see table  5 below).

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
Our stated preferences data for a prospective COVID-19 vaccine in the UAE, was collected using a cross-sectional design. The survey was built using Google Forms platform and delivered to respondents using a snowball sampling strategy. The questionnaire was developed in bilingual (Arabic and English) format, and self-administered on a voluntary basis to participants across all seven emirates of the UAE (i.e. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Ajman, Fujairah, Umm al Quwain). In implementing our snowball sampling strategy, we (each co-investigator in the project) initially shared the web-based survey link through email on July 4 th 2020, to our primary contacts (aged 18 and above) living in the UAE, followed by a social media dispatch predominantly through WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams (MsTeams) channels. The primary respondents in our initial lunch of the survey were then requested to roll out the survey further after completion, by sharing the link with their own contacts in the UAE, while reminding their contacts to also share with their own after completion. The survey run for a month covering the period of July 4 th to August 4 th 2020, garnering responses from a total of 1109 participants. The responses were then downloaded from the Google forms platform, and imported into the R statistical software [6] for data treatment/preparation for statistical analysis. Preliminary data treatments included the conversion of questions into coded variables that are readable by any standard statistical software. It also included the recoding of the levels of our qualitative (nominal and ordinal) variables with numbers, and the production of descriptive statistics and summary tables for study variables. The analyzed data has been made available in the Mendeley repository [7] in R format, while also provided as a supplementary material with this manuscript. Table 1 below summarizes respondents' socio-economic and demographic characteristics; Table 2 on the other hand depicts personal and peer influences on respondents' perceived COVID-19 vaccine utility, while Table 3 conveys the contextual influences, and Table 4 describes vaccine specific influences on respondents' perceived COVID-19 vaccine utility. Finally, Table 5 provides three key vaccine outcome variables: (i) the vaccine preference outcome (with varying degree of acceptances), (ii) the opportunity cost outcome (amount of time willing to spend for the vaccine), and (iii) the direct cost outcome (amount of money willing to spend for the vaccine).
The first outcome represents the individual's willingness to get vaccinated, and is characterized by the individual's chosen position in the vaccine preference continuum, as indicated by the answer to the question "How willing are you to get the covid-19 vaccine, once discovered?", with the alternatives defined as "vaccine refusal" if chosen option is (0-not at all); "vaccine hesi-   tant" if chosen option is (1-a little; or 2-Moderate amount); "vaccine acceptant" if chosen option is (3-quite a bit). As the stated opportunity cost of vaccination the second outcome variable captures the time the individual is willing to spend to get the vaccine, and is the answer to the question "What is the maximum amount of time (in minutes), that you would be willing to spend to get the covid-19 vaccine, once discovered?", with 6 ordered outcomes (0-None; 1-less than 30 min; 2-30 to 60 min; 3-60 to 90 min; 4-90 to 120 min; 5-over 120 min).
Finally, the stated direct financial cost of vaccination as the third outcome variable is the answer to the question "What is the maximum amount (in dirham), that you would be willing to pay for the covid-19 vaccine, once discovered?". It has 7 potential choice options (0-0 AED; 1-less than 100 AED; 2-100 to 200 AED; 3-200 to 300 AED; 4-300 to 400 AED; 5-400 to 500 AED; 6-over 500 AED), where it should be noted that a fixed exchange rate parity of 3.6725 AED/USD exists between the UAE dirham, and the U.S. dollar.

Ethics Statement
Data collection was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Respondents' participation was completely consensual, anonymous, and voluntary.

Declaration of Competing Interest
The research project did not receive financial support from any institutions. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that have, or could be perceived to have, influenced the work reported in this article.