What Fuels COVID-19 Vaccine Reluctance in Young Adults?

Starting next week, 150 Connecticut students will begin training to travel to communities in their state that are lagging behind in vaccination and try to tackle COVID-19 vaccine reluctance in young adults.

The program comes as the country enters a period where the delta variant is on the rise in some places and officials struggle to convince millions of Americans to get vaccinated – currently the best hope of avoiding another wave of COVID – 19.

National authorities are trying to reach unvaccinated people – especially those between the ages of 18 and 24, who have lower vaccination rates than older groups and the highest rates of COVID-19 cases.

“It’s really meeting people where they are, giving them the important information so that they can make the decision for themselves”, Janelle Chiasera, Dean of the School of Health Sciences at Quinnipiac University , which works with the state health department. on the Connecticut Public Health College Corps program, told ABC News. “What we’re trying to do is get these people that’s on the fence, over that fence to get the shot.”

Unvaccinated adults are “considerably younger,” according to the latest vaccine monitoring report from the Kaiser Family Foundation; 29% of the unvaccinated are between 18 and 29 years old, against 17% of the vaccinated, for the lowest percentage of vaccinated adults.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41.8% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are fully vaccinated, compared with 66% of those 50 to 64 and 80.9% of those 65 to 74.

There are many reasons, including fear of side effects, but experts stress the need to overcome this barrier through targeted and reliable messages.

“The more people you have unvaccinated, the more likely it is that we will configure this virus to be able to create another variant,” Chiasera said. “We are allowing this virus to get smarter.”

Concerns about side effects

The reasons for the reluctance are varied and poorly understood. One may be the “lingering effects” of not prioritizing younger populations during the initial vaccine rollout, Dr Monica Schoch-Spana, principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and co-leader of CommuniVax, a national rapid research coalition focused on improving vaccine equity in black, Hispanic / Latino and Indigenous communities, told ABC News.

A new study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco published in the Journal of Adolescent Health this week found that about 1 in 4 unvaccinated people between the ages of 18 and 25 said they “didn’t would probably not “or” definitely not “Vaccine against covid19.

“There’s always this lingering perception that ‘I’m young, I’m strong, I can fight this thing,'” said Schoch-Spana. “So there is that sense of youthful invincibility that got stronger very early on when we had fewer vaccines available.”

Seniors and those with underlying illnesses diagnosed with COVID-19 generally fared much worse than those who were younger – more than 95% of deaths were in people 50 and older, according to data from the CDC

Others worry about the potential side effects of the vaccine. A CDC report released last month found that one of the main reasons American adults between the ages of 18 and 39 weren’t vaccinated was because of concerns about possible side effects. The UC San Francisco study found this to be a concern for more than half of those polled. No study has clarified what these concerns are.

In a survey of patients at its California sites last month, the COVID-19 testing and curative vaccination startup also found that the main reason people had not been vaccinated until then was due to concerns about side effects, according to Alexandra Simon, director of vaccines for the state.

“It could mean they’re worried about having to take time off from work, worried about the price of the cab, or just worried about getting sick,” Simon told ABC News. “I think there is a ton of misinformation circulating about side effects.”

Chiasera said she had also heard concerns about blood clots and “fertility issues in women.”

The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has been linked to an extremely rare but serious blood clotting disorder and, more recently, a rare neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre.

Experts and public health officials argue that the risks of the vaccine are outweighed by the benefits. The vast majority of side effects are mild, and long-term side effects are “unlikely,” according to the CDC. Additionally, researchers have found that there is a greater risk of developing COVID-19 clots than from vaccines.

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, affect fertility in women or men, according to the CDC.

“No unique and unique identity”

More education could help with vaccination efforts. The CDC’s report on immunization in young adults found that about two-thirds of those surveyed who were unsure of getting the vaccine said they did not have adequate information about the safety or effectiveness of vaccines. .

“There is a lot that we see on social media about vaccines, but not much that people really understand about them,” Chiasera said.

Through the Connecticut Public Health College Corps, trained students will participate in immunization clinics, community efforts and other outreach activities over the course of four weeks and will be there to answer people’s questions on topics such as availability, safety and efficacy of vaccines and side effects, says Chiasera.

“We’re realistic knowing that there are people – no matter what you say, no matter what you do – they’re not going to get the shot, but it’s a small percentage,” she said. “There are a lot more people who are on the fence, and I think our best efforts are really on those people who are on the fence – who really really have questions that they need answered to help make that decision. . “

Because a lot of attention is paid to reaching unvaccinated young adults, vaccination is a hyperlocal effort that cannot be generalized, Schoch-Spana said.

“You cannot expect a quick fix where everyone between the ages of 18 and 28 shows up in large numbers,” she said. “You really have to think about, OK, if I want to target college age kids, what should I do? If I want to target young Spanish speakers, where do I go? “

“There is no single, unique identity, so a youth-focused immunization campaign needs to think about the different types of young people that exist and develop very specific communication approaches, outreach approaches and delivery locations. to meet young people where they are, ”she said. added.

Need “trusted influencers”

A lot of it comes down to trust and who the “trusted influencers are,” Schoch-Spana said.

Through her research, she said, CommuniVax has found that in black communities in rural Alabama, it is the grandparents who advocate for their grandchildren to be vaccinated; Meanwhile, in Hispanic / Latino communities in rural Idaho, the younger generation is helping grandparents get vaccinated.

“Different age groups have different levels of influence, depending on where they are in their family and also in the community at large,” she said.

In its investigation of its vaccination sites in California, Curative found that one of the reasons someone who was previously hesitant to get vaccinated ultimately did so because “someone I trust me” convinced “.

A majority of patients at its California vaccination sites came on the basis of referrals, most of which were from people who had been vaccinated at the site, Curative has learned. After realizing this, they launched a program called “Vax Tripling”, based on the concept of political organization of tripling the votes.

“It’s the idea that every person who commits to vote, you also ask them which three people they can talk to about the vote,” Simon said. “So it’s kind of leveraging this trusted messaging network that’s happening organically.”

To further boost referrals, Curative has created business cards with information about the site that patients can give to members of their community to make “every person who chooses to be vaccinated a general immunization ambassador, d ‘an authentic way for the community. and real to their relationships, ”said Simon.