Do Language Barriers Impact COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy among Quebec Visible Minority Groups?
Language barriers are an important obstacle when it comes to vaccination and may even result in a lack of access to COVID-19 information. The prospect of new waves of COVID-19 infections poses a special risk to English-speaking visible minority communities across Quebec due to the increased levels of infection and death. Visible minorities bore the brunt of the first waves of the pandemic, and evidence suggests that they have high levels of vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy is characterized by a lack of confidence in vaccination and/or complacency about vaccination. Black and other visible minority communities have shown greater hesitancy towards vaccinations compared to their white counterparts and receive significantly fewer vaccine doses. We will conduct a 3-wave, prospective, longitudinal study (over a 10-month period) that examines linguistic and motivational factors that impact the readiness of visible minority young adults to get COVID19 vaccines. The study represents an ongoing collaboration of the McGill Human Motivation Laboratory and the Black Community Resource Center (BCRC). The BCRC serves as the secretariat for 14 community agencies that provide services to English-speaking visible minority groups. A novel component of this research is that it will examine how young adults process and respond to public health information intended to promote vaccinations(e.g., emphasis on visibility, relatability, and equity). Both language minority status and visible minority status are expected to be associated with response to these communications. We will develop empirically based resources for Black and visible minority young adults to promote autonomous motivation and positive attitudes about vaccination.
Outputs:
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