A new Rutgers Global Health Institute study is investigating vaccine hesitancy in Alaska and contributing to solutions in communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
It is widely understood that racial and ethnic minorities and underserved communities have experienced higher rates of illness and death from the disease. Among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, these disparities are especially pronounced. In addition, COVID-19 vaccine uptake has been relatively low in Alaska. As of this March, only 65 percent of the population was considered fully vaccinated statewide, with rates closer to 50 percent in several communities.
Epidemiologist Ubydul Haque, the study’s principal investigator, aims to determine the causes of vaccine hesitancy in underserved communities in Alaska, and to develop a novel method for using social media and households’ active participation to better predict outbreaks and target interventions in vaccine-hesitant communities across the United States. The study, “Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy through Social-Media Data Collection, Machine Learning Algorithm Development, and Targeted Use,” is funded by Merck.
“In the case of COVID-19, most community-level interventions have been responsive, focused on detection, isolation, and treatment after outbreaks have already occurred,” says Haque, an assistant professor at Rutgers Global Health Institute and at the Rutgers School of Public Health. “There is a critical need to identify at-risk communities for intervention before outbreaks occur, and to tailor the responses to the needs of these communities.” To read the full story.