Transcript – Correlates and Disparities of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

We are presenting the findings of our study titled Correlates and Disparities of COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy, a recent project that we conducted in the context of our three previous research has indicated that about 25 to 50 percent of Americans are reluctant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available. This is a problem because herd immunity cannot be achieved if the proportion of Americans opting out is this high. Previous research has also uncovered COVID-19 disparities. Blacks and Hispanics are almost five times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 compared to whites. With this research, we wanted to know who is most reluctant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and why, with particular focus on existing COVID-19 disparities. This is important because once we know who is most reluctant and why we could target these individuals with effective health communication interventions in order to decrease vaccine hesitancy, increase intentions to get vaccinated, and thus reduce the spread of COVID-19, we conducted a survey with a representative sample of about five thousand Americans in May and June of 2020 and found that over 30 percent of these individuals do not plan on receiving the COVID-19 vaccine once it becomes available. We also found that blacks, women and conservatives are most likely to refuse October 19 vaccine. Blacks in particular were concerned about vaccine safety, vaccine efficacy and vaccine costs and access. This is troublesome because these concerns could further exasperate the disproportionately negative effects of COVID-19 in Black communities. Our research is one of the first to identify key groups in the population that should be targeted with effective health communication interventions to educate about the COVID-19 vaccine and promote COVID-19 vaccination in order to reduce covid-19 disparities, as well as the overall spread of COVID-19 within the broader population.