CMU study shows racial disparities in vaccine distribution, acceptance

Surveys from Carnegie Mellon University researchers show vaccine distribution is lower among Black and Hispanic Americans than white people across the U.S.

Carnegie Mellon’s Delphi Research Group began surveying Facebook users nationwide about covid-19 symptoms in April 2020 and throughout the pandemic has released analyses on a variety of covid-related topics. The group began surveying Facebook users about their access to vaccine in December, when the federal rollout began.

The university recently released an analysis on 300,000 responses collected between Jan. 9 and 15. While the results showed 9.3% of white Americans said they received the vaccine, only 6.4% of African Americans and 6.8% of Hispanic Americans said they had.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives reported a 12.9% rate of vaccination, and Asian Americans, 12.3%.

“These disparities highlight longstanding gaps in Americans’ access to and trust in medicine, and show that much work remains to be done to ensure everyone has access to health care they trust,” Alex Reinhart, assistant teaching professor in CMU’s Department of Statistics and Data Science, said in a statement.

The results agree with prior research, Reinhart said.

Reinhart and other researchers noted the disparities could be due to people of color generally being less likely to have access to affordable health care, as well as historic mistrust in medical research practices among these groups.

Pitt researchers also have embarked on a project addressing vaccine mistrust in minority and other groups, with plans to correct misinformation through community health organizations and other partners in Pittsburgh. The region’s major health systems also have targeted marginalized groups with special vaccine clinics.

CMU’s survey results showed only 58% of Black Americans nationwide said they would get the vaccine if it were offered to them. In some states, the researchers said, Black Americans are more than twice as likely to worry about side effects than white Americans are.

By contrast, trust in the vaccine among white and Hispanic people is at 76% and 73%, respectively, and 88% for Asian Americans.

Reinhart said CMU researchers are formulating additional questions to learn exactly why these groups have higher levels of vaccine hesitancy.

“We’re hoping the additional questions that we add … may tell us more about what it is we need to do,” Reinhart said. “Is it that they’re worried about side effects? Do we need to make sure there’s more information about that? Is it that they don’t trust physicians? Is it that they don’t trust the government? What are the specific concerns? So you could then design your outreach, public relations and public health campaign to try to address those concerns.”

The Delphi Group’s survey collaboration with Facebook has continued for almost a year, and Reinhart predicted it could remain useful for the next several months as vaccine rollout continues. Especially in the absence of detailed state and local data regarding vaccine distribution by race and ethnicity, he hopes this research will help officials examine and improve accessibility by race, geography and other factors.

Department of Health data show less than 12,000 African American Pennsylvanians have received their first dose of covid-19 vaccine, compared with nearly 413,000 white Pennsylvanians. However, there are more than 228,000 partially vaccinated people identified as “unknown.”

“We’re hoping to make more of this data available for exactly that purpose,” Reinhart said. “Officials who might not have access to very detailed state and local data that’s broken down by demographics and other features (will) have something to go on.”