UK survey: Ethnic minorities less likely to take Covid-19 jab

People from ethnic minority backgrounds or with lower incomes are less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine being rolled out in Britain, research suggested yesterday, raising concerns about whether the jab would reach the communities that have been hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic.

Asurvey by Britain’s Royal Society for Public Health said that while threequarters of those polled would take a Covid-19 vaccine if advised to do so by a doctor, that figure fell to 57 per centamongblack people and those from Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.

The body also said the survey “revealed significantly more hesitancyamonglower income groups”— with 70 per cent of lowest earners likely to agree to the jab, compared to 84 per cent of highest earners.

Public health experts and doctors say the findings are concerning, but unsurprising. They align with consistently lower uptake rates of other vaccines, like the measles and flu jabs, amongethnic minority communities and in poorer neighbourhoods, they say.

That reluctance— a result of factors like public health messaging not reaching the communities and mistrust of authority based on past experiences— has been exacerbated by misinformation and antivaccination campaigns.

“We haveknown for years that different communities have different levels of satisfaction in the National Health Service,” said Christina Marriott, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health. “More recentlywehave seen antivaccination messages have been specifically targeted at different groups, including different ethnic or religious communities.”

Ondecember 8, Britain became the first country to roll out the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and Biontech, which has an efficacy rate of about 95 per cent. The government is first targeting people over80and nursinghomeworkers. About 138,000 people have received the first of two required jabs to date.

Anumber of studies have shown that black people and ethnic minorities are more at risk of contracting and dying from Covid-19, as a result of genetic conditions and socio-economic circumstances. A report by Public Health England also said that structural racism and poor experiences of public healthcare madeit less likely forsomegroups to seek carewhenneeded.

Officials have not said they would prioritise black or ethnic minority communities during the coronavirus vaccine rollout. Dr Salman Waqar, general secretary of the British

Islamic Medical Association, said it has been left up to individual health trusts to decide whether or not to vaccinate black or minority health workers first. — AP