Vaccine "Hesitancy"
When the first COVID-19 vaccinations started being administered at the end of 2020, Black Americans were among the groups with the least confidence in the vaccine according to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. This study found that 35% of Black Americans would probably or definitely not get the vaccine if it was determined to be safe and widely available. This distrust stems from the nation's history of medical racism that has disregarded the needs of minority populations and even experimented on Black Americans. Black doctors and healthcare workers have been working hard to build trust around the vaccine with Black Americans (Ellis).
A lot of the wariness around the vaccine stems from the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the US Public Health Services starting in 1932. This study recruited Black men in Alabama who had contracted syphilis and told the men that they would be treated, but they were actually untreated and the study analyzed whether whether untreated syphilis progressed differently in Black people compared with white people. The federal government never intended to treat the Black men even though they had the resources, and many Black men died or passed on the disease by the time the study ended in 1972. Today, unfair medical treatment has persisted, but distrust of vaccines in the African American community goes deeper than this study (Sacks).
At the same time, blaming "vaccine hesitancy" could only perpetuate inequities. Dr. Rhea Boyd, pediatrician, public health advocate and scholar wrote, "Many are quick to blame 'vaccine hesitancy' as the reason, putting the onus on Black Americans to develop better attitudes around vaccination. But this hyper-focus on hesitancy implicitly blames Black communities for their undervaccination, and it obscures opportunities to address the primary barrier to Covid-19 vaccination: access." According to recent data from Pew Research Center 61% of African Americans express interest in receiving a vaccine (Boyd).
In another survey of 1,227 adults conducted March 3 to 8 by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, 73% of Black people and 70% of White people said that they either planned to get a coronavirus vaccine or had done so already; 25% of Black respondents and 28% of white respondents said they did not plan to get a vaccine. 37% of Latino respondents said they would get vaccinated, and 63% said they had or intended to get a vaccine. The survey found there are more distinctions by political party than by race (Summers).
Learn more:
A lot of the wariness around the vaccine stems from the Tuskegee syphilis study conducted by the US Public Health Services starting in 1932. This study recruited Black men in Alabama who had contracted syphilis and told the men that they would be treated, but they were actually untreated and the study analyzed whether whether untreated syphilis progressed differently in Black people compared with white people. The federal government never intended to treat the Black men even though they had the resources, and many Black men died or passed on the disease by the time the study ended in 1972. Today, unfair medical treatment has persisted, but distrust of vaccines in the African American community goes deeper than this study (Sacks).
At the same time, blaming "vaccine hesitancy" could only perpetuate inequities. Dr. Rhea Boyd, pediatrician, public health advocate and scholar wrote, "Many are quick to blame 'vaccine hesitancy' as the reason, putting the onus on Black Americans to develop better attitudes around vaccination. But this hyper-focus on hesitancy implicitly blames Black communities for their undervaccination, and it obscures opportunities to address the primary barrier to Covid-19 vaccination: access." According to recent data from Pew Research Center 61% of African Americans express interest in receiving a vaccine (Boyd).
In another survey of 1,227 adults conducted March 3 to 8 by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist, 73% of Black people and 70% of White people said that they either planned to get a coronavirus vaccine or had done so already; 25% of Black respondents and 28% of white respondents said they did not plan to get a vaccine. 37% of Latino respondents said they would get vaccinated, and 63% said they had or intended to get a vaccine. The survey found there are more distinctions by political party than by race (Summers).
Learn more:
- "Amid history of mistreatment, doctors struggle to sell Black Americans on coronavirus vaccine" (The Washington Post)
- Fueled by a History of Mistreatment, Black Americans Distrust the New COVID-19 Vaccines (TIME)
- Experts warn of low Covid vaccine trust among Black Americans (NBC)
- "Black People Need Better Vaccine Access, Not Better Vaccine Attitudes" (The New York Times)
Racial Disparities
In January 2021, it was revealed that African Americans and Latinos had been thus far receiving the vaccine at significantly lower rates than whites according to data from 14 states. This data found that vaccine coverage is twice as high for whites on average than it is for African Americans and Latinos, even though African Americans and Latinos are dying of the disease three times the rate of white people according to the CDC (Ellis and McPhillips). In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced at the end of January that Black and Latino residents had received far fewer doses than white resident. Only 11% of the vaccinated population was African American, but the city's population is about 24% Black. Similar disparities have been seen in New Jersey and Chicago, and across the country (Fitzsimmons).
Learn more with the New York Times' interactive analysis
Learn more with the New York Times' interactive analysis
Get Common Questions Answered
Johns Hopkins Medicine answers some FAQs about the COVID-19 vaccine and people of color here.