Increasing COVID vaccine, booster uptake in Black patients requires empathy, conversation
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Key takeaways:
- Primary hesitations regarding COVID-19 vaccines and boosters in Black patients with rheumatic diseases include distrust of medical and health care systems.
- Strategies to improve uptake should be compassionate, individually tailored and aware of racial and socioeconomic injustices.
Strategies seeking to increase COVID-19 vaccine and booster uptake in Black patients with rheumatic diseases should consider and offer responses for racial, ethnic and socioeconomic factors, according to researchers.
“While nationwide efforts have helped reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and promote uptake among individuals from historically marginalized populations, inequities in vaccine series completion and booster uptake persist,” Nnenna Ezeh, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, and colleagues wrote in Arthritis Care & Research. “Among individuals with rheumatic conditions, studies have demonstrated disproportionate burden of COVID-19 disease, adverse outcomes, and vaccine hesitancy among historically marginalized individuals paralleling the general population.”
To investigate the thoughts and motivations behind COVID-19 vaccine and booster hesitancy among Black patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, Ezeh and colleagues invited physicians and community leaders to participate in semi-structured interviews. Verbal interviews lasted about 40 minutes and were conducted via Zoom. All interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis.
Following transcription, Ezeh and colleagues individually assessed interviews for present themes, and created a coding system to analyze them. Themes that related to the demographics of participants were granted extra weight in the analysis. Eight participants reviewed the findings as part of an effort to record their critical thoughts.
A total of eight physicians and 12 community leaders were interviewed as part of the study. The top cited reasons offered by participants for harboring vaccine hesitancy included conspiracy theories, concerns surrounding the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, concerns pertaining to the function of vaccines, racism and historical injustices, and “general mistrust of health care systems,” according to the researchers. Strategies to increase vaccine uptake and spread community-based vaccine information included “personal storytelling with an iterative and empathetic approach,” the researchers wrote.
“The experiences and perspectives of participants will be used to develop a curriculum to train [popular opinion leaders] on COVID-19 vaccine and booster safety and hesitancy in communities of Black individuals with rheumatic conditions with a racial justice lens,” Ezeh and colleagues wrote. “We hope these perspectives will help efforts to reduce mistrust and fear.”
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