{"title":"The lasting impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: COVID-19 vaccination hesitation among African Americans","authors":"Xiaolong Hou, Yang Jiao, Leilei Shen, Zhuo Chen","doi":"10.1007/s00148-024-01013-y","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is widely recognized that African Americans have a higher level of mistrust towards the medical and health sector, which results in insufficient utilization of public health services, low participation in clinical research, and vaccination hesitancy. While the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has been identified as a key factor in this mistrust, its specific influence on COVID-19 vaccination uptake among African Americans remains unexplored. Our paper fills this research gap. Our results suggest that the difference in COVID-19 vaccination rates between communities with low and high proportions of Black residents decreases during the study period, but the gap persists. Notably, counties closer to Tuskegee exhibit a slower rate of progress in reducing the racial disparity in COVID-19 vaccination, indicating that the lingering mistrust stemming from the Tuskegee Study has contributed to unequal vaccination rates between African Americans and the rest of America.</p>","PeriodicalId":48013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Population Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Population Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-024-01013-y","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
It is widely recognized that African Americans have a higher level of mistrust towards the medical and health sector, which results in insufficient utilization of public health services, low participation in clinical research, and vaccination hesitancy. While the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has been identified as a key factor in this mistrust, its specific influence on COVID-19 vaccination uptake among African Americans remains unexplored. Our paper fills this research gap. Our results suggest that the difference in COVID-19 vaccination rates between communities with low and high proportions of Black residents decreases during the study period, but the gap persists. Notably, counties closer to Tuskegee exhibit a slower rate of progress in reducing the racial disparity in COVID-19 vaccination, indicating that the lingering mistrust stemming from the Tuskegee Study has contributed to unequal vaccination rates between African Americans and the rest of America.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Population Economics is an international quarterly that publishes original theoretical and applied research in all areas of population economics.
Micro-level topics examine individual, household or family behavior, including household formation, marriage, divorce, fertility choices, education, labor supply, migration, health, risky behavior and aging. Macro-level investigations may address such issues as economic growth with exogenous or endogenous population evolution, population policy, savings and pensions, social security, housing, and health care.
The journal also features research into economic approaches to human biology, the relationship between population dynamics and public choice, and the impact of population on the distribution of income and wealth. Lastly, readers will find papers dealing with policy issues and development problems that are relevant to population issues.The journal is published in collaboration with POP at UNU-MERIT, the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE).Officially cited as: J Popul Econ Factor (RePEc): 13.576 (July 2018) Rank 69 of 2102 journals listed in RePEc