Racism, inequity affect vaccine intentions, uptake in U.S.: Nature

A child receives a COVID-19 vaccine shot in Los Angeles, the United States, on Dec. 17, 2022. (Xinhua)

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-illuminated how racism and social and structural inequities in this country negatively influence health outcomes among people of color.

NEW YORK, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- During the early stages of the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, uptake of COVID-19 vaccines was higher among White, non-Hispanic persons as compared with people of color, reported Nature on Wednesday.

"These early racial and ethnic disparities in vaccination rates led many news stories, journal articles and other reports to perpetuate a narrative that disparities in the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among people of color were largely driven by vaccine hesitancy, while neglecting to focus on health inequities and other factors as drivers of disparities in vaccine intentions and uptake," said the report.

The COVID-19 pandemic has re-illuminated how racism and social and structural inequities in this country negatively influence health outcomes among people of color, laid bare by their disproportionate burden of SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, according to the report.

Use of the term vaccine hesitancy in the context of COVID-19 vaccines might be perceived as placing responsibility for vaccination status on the individual, leaving historical and current social and structural inequities that affect vaccine confidence and vaccination rates unexamined and unaddressed, it said.

"The failure of the media and scientific scholars to contextualize how inequities affect vaccine intentions and uptake among people of color during a critical period when there was a defined goal for adult COVID-19 vaccination in the USA reveals missed opportunities to change the narrative from hesitancy and refusal toward racism and inequities that affect vaccine intentions and uptake," it added.