Today’s population health challenges are complex. Addressing these challenges and building environments that value and promote health for everyone requires expertise from multiple scientific disciplines and public and private partners.
Guided by the principles of scientific rigor, equity, justice, community engagement, and multidisciplinary and multi-institution collaboration, the Lerner Center’s mission is to improve population and community health through research, education, outreach and health promotion programming focused on the social, spatial and structural determinants of physical, mental and behavioral health and health disparities.
With faculty affiliates from public health, sociology, psychology, economics, medicine and public administration, the Lerner Center’s approach to research is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary.
Established in 2011 with an endowment from Sid and Helaine Lerner, the center fulfills its mission through the interrelated pillars of research, education, advocacy and action.
Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health
Population Health Research Brief Series
Which Types of People Were Least Likely to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?
Xue Zhang and Shannon M. Monnat
July 2024
Abstract
Vaccine hesitancy is a long-standing challenge that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the reasons behind different types of vaccine hesitancy is crucial for developing effective vaccine messaging strategies that can increase confidence in and uptake of future vaccines. This brief summarizes the findings from a study that used data from the 2022 National Wellbeing Survey on 7,612 U.S. adults aged 18-64 to identify characteristics of adults who were least likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine and the characteristics associated with different types of vaccine hesitancy. The authors considered three non-mutually exclusive types of vaccine hesitancy: 1) watchful (concerned about vaccine side effects, efficacy, and safety); 2) skeptics (distrust the vaccine or believe they do not need it), and 3) system distrusters (distrust the government). Results showed that being unvaccinated was more likely among adults who are younger, Non-Hispanic Black (compared to Non-Hispanic White), unmarried, have less than a 4-year college degree, low household income, unemployed, voted for Trump in 2020, and live in a nonmetropolitan county. Trump voters were the most likely to be skeptics and system distrusters. Females, non-Hispanic Black adults, and unmarried adults were most likely to be concerned about vaccine side effects or safety (i.e., watchful).
Population Health Brief Series
Research Projects
Research by Lerner affiliates is regularly funded by the National Institutes of Health, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and many other federal agencies and foundations. The Lerner Center also funds population health research at Syracuse University through its Faculty Fellows Program.
Student Opportunities
Are you an undergraduate or graduate student at Syracuse University interested in population and community health? Do you seek a career with meaning and purpose?
The Lerner Center provides distinctive experience that combines traditional and applied training in population health and community health research and engagement to address pressing local, regional and national health problems and reduce health inequities—from academic certificates, to internships, to service learning opportunities and more.
Healthy Monday
Learn tips and tricks to jump start your Monday, maintain or promote healthy behaviors and help to end preventable chronic diseases.
Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health
Population Health Research Brief Series
Which Types of People Were Least Likely to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?
Xue Zhang and Shannon M. Monnat
July 2024
Abstract
Vaccine hesitancy is a long-standing challenge that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding the reasons behind different types of vaccine hesitancy is crucial for developing effective vaccine messaging strategies that can increase confidence in and uptake of future vaccines. This brief summarizes the findings from a study that used data from the 2022 National Wellbeing Survey on 7,612 U.S. adults aged 18-64 to identify characteristics of adults who were least likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine and the characteristics associated with different types of vaccine hesitancy. The authors considered three non-mutually exclusive types of vaccine hesitancy: 1) watchful (concerned about vaccine side effects, efficacy, and safety); 2) skeptics (distrust the vaccine or believe they do not need it), and 3) system distrusters (distrust the government). Results showed that being unvaccinated was more likely among adults who are younger, Non-Hispanic Black (compared to Non-Hispanic White), unmarried, have less than a 4-year college degree, low household income, unemployed, voted for Trump in 2020, and live in a nonmetropolitan county. Trump voters were the most likely to be skeptics and system distrusters. Females, non-Hispanic Black adults, and unmarried adults were most likely to be concerned about vaccine side effects or safety (i.e., watchful).