{"id":161600,"date":"2022-07-06T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T18:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=161600"},"modified":"2022-07-05T14:50:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T00:50:24","slug":"nhpi-vaccination-rates-affected-by-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/07\/06\/nhpi-vaccination-rates-affected-by-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander vaccination rates affected by trust levels"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

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The reasons behind vaccine hesitancy among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders (NHPI<\/abbr>s) in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic are explained in a new University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa study. Researchers said the findings could provide a foundation for communication strategies for other health policies beyond the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Until last fall, NHPIs<\/abbr> remained significantly under-vaccinated compared to ethnic groups in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. A team of University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa researchers surveyed Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents between March and August 2021 and their findings, published in Vaccines<\/em><\/a> in June 2022, describes how racial\/ethnic differences in trust between sources of COVID-19 information, coupled with the level of consumption of such information, corresponded to divergence in vaccine uptake.<\/p>\n

“The study revealed for the first time an opposing role of trust in vaccine uptake that we were able to quantify,” said Ruben Juarez<\/strong>, economics professor in UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s College of Social Sciences<\/a> (CSS<\/abbr>) and HMSA<\/abbr> Endowed Professor of Health Economics at UHERO<\/abbr><\/a>. “The levels of trust individuals expressed were highly dependent on the source of information they relied on to make decisions regarding their health.”<\/p>\n

Working in collaboration with the Pacific Alliance Against COVID-19<\/a> (PAAC<\/abbr>), researchers surveyed 1,124 Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents during the group\u2019s COVID-19 testing events. Of the respondents, 61.7% self-identified as Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander. Researchers observed that:<\/p>\n