Discrimination backfires? Minority ethnic disparities in vaccine hesitancy

Joan Costa-Font and Fatima Docrat

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: A number of minority ethnic groups (MEGs) exhibited persistent reluctance to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. This paper attempts to empirically identify some of the contentious behavioral determinants for vaccine hesitancy (VH) that remain unexplained including the role of risk perceptions, trust in government institutions, and prior experiences of racism and trauma. We draw on unique longitudinal data from a minority-boosted sample that was collected in the United Kingdon (UK). We document robust evidence of MEG disparities in VH, which declined between November 2020 and March 2021. While VH is associated to both historical and current distrust in government, risk beliefs, exposure to racism, and an individuals socio-economic background, these factors do not fully explain MEG disparities. Furthermore, similar patterns of inequality are observed when we examine MEG disparities in healthcare use, suggesting that disparities in VH reflect broader unobservable structural barriers to healthcare access.

Keywords: Covid-19; vaccination hesitancy; ethnicity; race; minority ethic group; health care access; coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J15 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 11 pages
Date: 2024-12-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Published in Economics and Human Biology, 31, December, 2024, 55. ISSN: 1570-677X

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:125725

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