loader image
Friday, October 10, 2025
76.4 F
McAllen
- Advertisement -

What drives vaccine hesitancy?

Translate to Spanish or other 102 languages!

“This pandemic disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities and older adults,” said Bleakley, a professor of communication who focuses on health communication. “These are the exact groups we’re studying in the Alzheimer’s project.” Image for illustration purposes.
“This pandemic disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities and older adults,” said Bleakley, a professor of communication who focuses on health communication. “These are the exact groups we’re studying in the Alzheimer’s project.” Image for illustration purposes.

Mega Doctor News

- Advertisement -

By University of Delaware

Newswise — Think back to October and November of 2020. The COVID pandemic was raging in the United States, and although there were plenty of news reports about the apparently successful development and testing of vaccines, none had been approved or were available to the American public at that time.

Still, public health officials were preparing for the vaccination process in the U.S., including considering how to best communicate and encourage immunization.

- Advertisement -

For the University of Delaware’s Amy Bleakley, this challenge seemed to fit with research she was already conducting under a grant from the National Institute on Aging, exploring ways to encourage more diverse groups to participate in studies of Alzheimer’s disease.

“This pandemic disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities and older adults,” said Bleakley, a professor of communication who focuses on health communication. “These are the exact groups we’re studying in the Alzheimer’s project.”

She and other health communication scholars at UD began researching how targeted and strategic messaging can cut through the confusion and misinformation about vaccines. The professors and graduate students investigated how age, education and attitudes influence behavior and affect public health during the pandemic. 

Bleakley and her colleagues’ research, specifically looking at vaccine hesitancy among demographic groups, was recently published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.  

- Advertisement -

They surveyed national samples of different demographic groups: Black, Hispanic, white, those age 18-49 and those 50 and older. They examined such questions as attitudes toward science, misperceptions about the COVID virus, perceptions of media bias and what is called normative pressure — whether people who are important to you think you should get the vaccine and whether people who are like you will get the vaccine.

National research from November 2020 showed that Black Americans said they were much less likely than whites to get the vaccine when it became available. Bleakley and her colleagues delved into other attitudes and factors in different groups, using a widely tested behavioral theory called Reasoned Action Approach (RAA), which examines underlying beliefs. 

The study found that many patterns were similar across groups, including the value an individual placed on science and whether they were receiving accurate information about COVID and the vaccine. Older adults in all groups were more susceptible to misinformation, for example.

“What we found is that attitudes are important across the board, including a person’s expectation of what will happen once they get the vaccine,” Bleakley said. “There weren’t as many differences among racial and ethnic groups as we had anticipated, especially among older adults.” 

People’s attitudes, she said, are very much tied to their identity — whether to a racial or ethnic group, a political party or other factors they consider important — and so are not easy to change. Messaging is important in the area of public health, but messaging alone isn’t enough, she said.

- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -

- Advertisement -

More Articles

Could Direct-to-Consumer Drug Pricing Compete with Prescription Insurance?

A new study offers a glimpse at how direct-to-consumer pharmacy pricing could one day present stiff competition to the private prescription drug insurance model, researchers say. 

Diabetic Teens with High Blood Sugar Have Higher Neuropathy Risk in Adulthood

Poor blood sugar control in adolescence increases the risk of painful future complications for people with type 1 diabetes, research co-led by University of Michigan suggests.

Teens in Distress Turn to Tobacco but Need More Help to Quit

A new study based on the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey has uncovered a concerning gap in how health professionals support young people dealing with mental health challenges and tobacco use.

What Heart & Stroke Patients Should Know Before Visiting The Dentist

Mega Doctor News By American Heart Association Some people might consider their dentist’s...
- Advertisement -
×