Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun:18:101073.
doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101073. Epub 2022 Mar 17.

Race, ethnicity and COVID-19 vaccine concerns: A latent class analysis of data during early phase of vaccination

Jen-Hao Chen  1 , Cheng-Shi Shiu  2
Affiliations

Race, ethnicity and COVID-19 vaccine concerns: A latent class analysis of data during early phase of vaccination

Jen-Hao Chen et al. SSM Popul Health. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Racial gaps in vaccine uptake in the United States have been widely reported. Existing studies, however, have not explored how individuals' concerns about COVID-19 vaccines are clustered. In this study, racial and ethnic background is linked to constellations of COVID-19 vaccine concerns during the early phase of vaccines in the United States, using the Household Pulse Survey (N = 60,492). Latent class analysis reveals five distinct classes of vaccine concerns: general skepticism, distrust of science and the government, safety, a desire to wait and see, and vague uncertainty. Compared to Whites, people of color more consistently report vaccine hesitancy due to safety and a desire to wait and see, rather than distrust of science and the government. Whites, however, more consistently report general skepticism and distrust of science and the government. Our findings suggest that distrust of science and government is not central to racial minorities' vaccine hesitancy, but it is so for Whites.

Keywords: Latent class analysis; Pandemic; Perceived costs and benefits; Racial and ethnic disparities; Trust; Vaccine attitudes and belief.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest to disclose.

References

    1. Akee R., Jones M.R., Porter S.R. Race matters: Income shares, income inequality, and income mobility for all U.S. Races. Demography. 2019;56(3):999–1021. doi: 10.1007/s13524-019-00773-7. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Andre F., Booy R., Bock H., Clemens J., Datta S., John T., Lee B., Lolekha S., Peltola H., Ruff T., Santosham M., Schmitt H. Vaccination greatly reduces disease, disability, death and inequity worldwide. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2008;86(2):140–146. doi: 10.2471/blt.07.040089. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Asparouhov T., Muthén B. Auxiliary variables in mixture modeling: Three-step approaches using M plus. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 2014;21(3):329–341. doi: 10.1080/10705511.2014.915181. - DOI
    1. Bakk Z., Kuha J. Relating latent class membership to external variables: An overview. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology. 2020;74(2):340–362. doi: 10.1111/bmsp.12227. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bardenheier B.H., Lindley M.C., Ball S.W., de Perio M.A., Laney S., Gravenstein S. Cluster Analysis: Vaccination attitudes and beliefs of healthcare personnel. American Journal of Health Behavior. 2020;44(3):302–312. doi: 10.5993/ajhb.44.3.3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources