Recent research funded by Glasgow Caledonian University explored COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy within minority ethnic communities in Scotland. It was conducted by Dr Josephine Adekola, Dr Jamila Audu, Prof. Denis Fischbacher-Smith, Dr. Chioma Nwafor, and Dr. Thelma Okay-Adibe.
The report makes the following recommendations:
- There is the need to continue collecting data based on ethnicity to better understand how communities differ in their exposure, vulnerabilities, and experiences to COVID-19 and the various vaccine brands. This ethnicity-based data could also help tell more compelling stories to the different communities, as risk messages can be framed at a level of granularity that makes sense to each of the local communities.
- There is the need to forge and expand the ongoing relationship with different community groups to foster trust between the Government and the various ethnic minority communities. Such a visible relationship would help encourage discussion about the cost and benefit of COVID-19 vaccines at the community level.
- Risk messaging should include appropriate identities, values, and experiences of target communities. For example, framing messages around festive and religious celebration will be useful as individuals can better relate to them.
- There is the need to ensure availability and access to trusted vaccines at the community level and this, to some extent, would require giving individuals some level of control or choice over the brand of vaccine administered to them. For instance, our findings indicate that some participants have preference for certain brands of COVID19 vaccines.
- There is the need to invest in ethnic minority communities, supporting members of the communities to prosper and reach their potential. Communicating about risk and COVID19 vaccination does not solely rest on science. There are often structural, cultural and psychological factors that are also influential in shaping how people engage with risk information and take up protective behaviour. For example, there is a need for the Government to address some of the structural problems that are exposing people from ethnic minority communities to COVID-19 infection in the first place. Many of these issues centre around underemployment, unemployment, gender discrimination. Furthermore, lack of Government investment into these communities has contributed to the perceptions held by members of these communities.
- Lastly, there is the need to allocate funds to forge scientific research pertaining to ethnic minority communities that would help enhance an understanding of the behavior and concerns of people as it pertains to public health.
The research was funded by the University as part of the University’s commitment to the common good and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030.