COVID-19 and Vaccine Hesitancy: A Literature Review

Kellogg, S., Tinoco, G., & Thareja, G.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of health misinformation has been rapid and severe. We were interested in examining the rates of vaccine hesitancy as they were related to education, socioeconomic status, and social media use. By discovering what is mainly affecting the U.S. population’s likelihood to get vaccinated, we can aim to reduce vaccine hesitancy rates at the local level. Vaccinations can help develop herd immunity towards current and future harmful coronavirus variants The newest COVID variant XBB 15 is proving not to lead to massive hospitalization or death rates but could cause severe disease in more vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and people with immunocompromising conditions To reduce the chances of experiencing severe disease, a person can opt to receive a booster shot of the vaccine to help minimize negative health outcomes associated with COVID-19 viral infection.

Research question: “How does education level, socioeconomic status, and social media use relate to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy”

In Gerretsen et al. (2021), adults ages 18+ from New York, California, Florida, & Texas were analyzed. Despite these being the four most populous states within the U.S., the sample size was not enough to generalize the findings, (N= 7678) In an article written by Kjos et al (2022), the study was conducted to better understand the relationship between health disparities and vaccine hesitancy However, the data was only collected in New York City from February to March 2021 Again, having a small sample size (N = 1584) limits the generalizability of the results In Liu & Li (2021), many limitations were present using data from the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. For example, the HPS answer choices for why there is vaccine hesitancy within individuals does not consider one’s past experiences with vaccinations, nor one’s philosophical, moral, or religious convictions. These data by the HPS also does not obtain information on the respondent’s ethnicity, making it impossible to examine the heterogeneity within racial groups (Liu & Li, 2021) In Melki et al (2021), a crosssectional phone survey was administered for adults living in Lebanon between March and April 2020. This study found that higher education and trust in the government resulted in less COVID-19 misinformation. Lastly, in a study by Muric et al. (2021), all data were collected from Twitter, demonstrating bias.

Gaps in the research methods of these articles demonstrate the unreliability in being able to generalize these results in the US We decided to conduct a systematic review to better address it

The literature review was conducted on 9 articles from 2020–2023 using a keyword search strategy including phrases such as “vaccine hesitancy misinformation”, “higher education”, “socioeconomics”,“social media”, and “COVID19”. These keywords were searched on multiple databases including Google Scholar, PubMed, and Auraria library’s website. We ensured all articles were from peer reviewed journals and applicable to the factors associated with vaccine hesitancy Of the selected studies for this review, sample size ranged from 506 to 1,800,000 These data were then analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis

We found that the higher education level and lower socioeconomic status study participants had, the less likely they were to have hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, the more the study participants used social media, the more likely it was that they were exposed to misinformation and presented with more vaccine hesitancy. Individuals with a bachelor’s degree and above were likely to get vaccinated even when exposed to social media misinformation Overall, 76% of individuals with a bachelor’s degree or above indicated that they have received at least one dose of vaccine Social media was shown to be a major contributor to spreading information about the virus and vaccination With the balance of accurate information through platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, individuals were less likely to be hesitant towards the vaccine by 75%. Lastly, people with an annual household income of $25,000 or less were 32% less likely to get vaccinated when compared with those above $25,000. However, people of higher socioeconomic status also showed vaccine hesitancy, but at lower rates

Education, social media messaging, and socioeconomic status can impact vaccine hesitancy Educating the communities about the COVID-19 vaccine, spreading the message through prominent media influencers, and offering incentives like gift cards, educational sessions, and media release campaigns might encourage people to get vaccinated.