Health Disparities Research at UCR

ABSTRACT Health literacy is a significant barrier for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine acceptance, particularly among low-income and minority communities that have experienced disproportionately high rates of COVID-19 infectionand mortality. Previous research has identified the importance of trust for health literacy. This is especiallytrue for minority communities that have experienced systemic discrimination within the US healthcare systemand harbor longstanding mistrust of physicians. Vaccine acceptance relies on public trust not only in individualproviders, but also in public health officials and the health care system as a whole. Public health experts agreethat the US lacks vaccine readiness and that interventions are needed to effectively overcome substantialvaccine hesitancy. Yet tens of millions of U.S. adults are unable to make decisions in their own best interestbecause they neither can access, nor understand, health information. This project uses a social ecological framework to investigate how low-income Latinx/Hispanics andAfrican Americans in Southern California's Inland Empire engage with health information about COVID-19and the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Understanding how information works as a system, rather than as a problemof physician-patient communication, facilitates identification of high-leverage points for communicationinterventions to increase vaccine acceptance among vulnerable populations. Research questions: What are the health information-seeking patterns of low-income and minoritypatients? And what can be learned from these patterns to design effective communication interventions tomitigate misinformation and overcome vaccine hesitancy? Aim 1: Investigate current information needs, knowledge, and concerns regarding COVID-19and a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Focus groups and a Community Advisory Board will inform the design of anonline survey to assess low-income African Americans' and Latinx/Hispanics' knowledge, beliefs,expectations, concerns, and fears regarding COVID-19 and a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Follow-up phoneinterviews will be conducted with a subset of survey respondents to probe more deeply into the processesthrough which individuals seek and obtain health information. Aim 2: Develop communication interventions to increase vaccine acceptance. Qualitative andquantitative analyses from Aim 1 will be integrated to categorize information-seeking patterns and identifyrelationships of trust in low-income minority communities. Communication strategies will then be designed toacknowledge both information barriers and existing social capital that can be harnessed in low-income andminority communities to increase vaccine acceptance.