Facilitator Michael Hughes talks vaccine barriers and motivators in Latinx communities

Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Horizon Foundation, Understanding Diverse Communities and Supporting Equitable and Informed COVID-19 Vaccination Decision-Making included three waves of Community Conversations with Native American, Latinx, African American and Asian American community members. It focused on how public health and other stakeholders can best understand and support Covid-19 vaccine decision-making. 

 

Michael Hughes was a facilitator of these conversations with members of the Latinx community and recently discussed barriers and motivators for vaccination in this population, saying, “Overwhelmingly the Latin X community talked about their obligations to one another, their sense of getting a vaccine in order that the rest of the community and the rest of their family could be protected and return to normal.”

 

On barriers, he says “First, there is an echo chamber of misinformation that you need to break into, communication in Spanish, on WhatsApp, misinformation rebounds and has persisted in ways that it may not be persisting in other communities. There are many people who have no health coverage or sick leave. If they take a vaccine suffer side effects for three, four days and cannot work, they do not get paid. And so for them, there are significant barriers to vaccination if that vaccine impacts their ability to earn a living.”