Addressing vaccine hesitancy to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake across the UK and US

Abstract

Momentous advancements have been achieved in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns within the US and UK; however, COVID-19 continues to have a disproportionate impact on ethnic minority groups. COVID-19 has exacerbated existing disparities in healthcare access and outcomes and has a profound effect on the socioeconomic status (i.e., the social class, education, and income status) of minority communities. Despite the amplified burden of COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy remains an issue within ethnic minority groups. The most recent report from the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) highlighted that vaccine hesitancy was highest among Black British adults at 21% and has not significantly improved since the start of 2021. Similarly, multiple surveys have called attention to the low uptake of COVID-19 vaccines across the Black population within the US. This commentary highlights factors that have contributed to the lower vaccination uptake within ethnic minority groups and provides solutions to address these persisting disparities.

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.789753

Repository URI

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/f6406d40-fb9b-4bd6-997d-65034cebaf9e