Household and social characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine intent among Latino families in the San Francisco Bay Area

• Published in: BMC infectious diseases Vol. 22; no. 1; p. 527
• Main Authors: Wojcicki, Janet M, Escobar, Milagro, Mendez, Andrea DeCastro, Martinez, Suzanna M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 07-06-2022; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Adults; Age; Bathrooms; Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; Children; Children & youth; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - prevention & control; COVID-19 Vaccines; Crowding; Diabetes mellitus; Eating; Families & family life; Family; Family Characteristics; FDA approval; Food security; Health aspects; Hispanic Americans; Hispanic or Latino; Households; Humans; Immigration policy; Infectious diseases; Language; Latin Americans; Latino children; Mothers; Nonintent; Nutrition; Pandemics; Population; Public health; Risk analysis; Risk factors; San Francisco - epidemiology; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Side effects; Telomeres; Vaccination; Vaccination - psychology; Vaccine uptake; Vaccines; San Francisco; United States; Mexico; San Francisco California; San Francisco Bay; California; United States > US; COVID-19; Latino children; Vaccine uptake; Nonintent
• ISSN: 1471-2334; 1471-2334
• DOI: 10.1186/s12879-022-07467-3

Latinos have had higher case counts, hospitalization rates and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic nationally and in the state of California. Meanwhile, Latino vaccination rates remain lower than those of non-Hispanic Whites. COVID-19 vaccine nonintent, defined as intent to not vaccinate against COVID-19, among Latino individuals continues to be an issue in the state of California.
Families from three Latino longitudinal mother-child cohorts previously recruited in the San Francisco Bay Area were surveyed telephonically from February to June 2021 to assess attitudes towards vaccination against COVID-19 and prior vaccination, in general, for themselves and their children. Risk for vaccine nonintent was assessed using the Mann-Whitney rank sum non-parametric test for continuous predictors and chi-squared tests for categorical ones.
Three hundred and nineteen families were surveyed from the Telomere at Birth (TAB), Hispanic Eating and Nutrition (HEN) and Latino Eating and Diabetes Cohort (LEAD). Approximately 36% from TAB and 28% from HEN/LEAD indicated COVID-19 vaccine nonintent for themselves and/or their children. Risk factors for vaccine nonintent included lower maternal age (p = 0.01), concern about vaccine side effects (p < 0.01) and prior history of a household members being infected with SARS-CoV-2 (p < 0.01) and indexes of household crowding including number of people sharing a bathroom (p = 0.048). Vaccine intent was also associated with receiving vaccine input from friends (p = 0.03), family (p < 0.01) and/or coworkers (p = 0.02) compared with those who were not planning on getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
Latino families living in crowded living situations who may not have received any COVID-19 advice from family, coworkers or friends are at particular risk for nonintent for vaccinatation against COVID-19. Community-based grassroots or promotor/a based interventions centered on trusted individuals with close community ties and counseling concerning vaccination against COVID-19 could help boost vaccination rates in this population group.