COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: Analyzing Risk Factors Impacting Minority Populations' Acceptance/Adoption and ICT-Based Solutions

Introduction

The COVID-19 global pandemic was officially known as SARS-CoV-2 as confirmed by collaborative research work of many scientists and healthcare professionals (Delorey, 2021). It was the first time that we heard about the disease in early March 2020, but it spread very rapidly in the USA and other parts of the world and by mid-2020 it had become a pandemic. Many businesses were shut down, schools were closed and some that had technological capabilities turned to such technologies to conduct virtual learning. Throughout 2020, there were no ready-made vaccines or medication to combat the disease (Charumilind et al, 2021). By October 2021, there were more than 5 million deaths globally and 500,000 in the USA (USAFacts.org, 2021, October 30). A few COVID-19 vaccines were made available in the USA by big pharmaceutical firms like Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson in early 2021, however, the long existing problem of medical mistrust and vaccine hesitancies hindered people from taking the vaccines.

Blendon et al (2014) inform that the USA ranks high among many industrialized countries in customer satisfaction but low in public trust of their physicians. The medical mistrust and vaccine hesitancy were amplified in 2020 with COVID-19. They became more pronounced even with the availability of the COVID-19 vaccines in the later part of 2021 so that people became flustered and full of various hesitancies that prevented them from taking the vaccines (Chou & Budenz, 2020; Cowan et al, 2021; Croxford, 2021; and Kates, et al, 2021). This research, therefore, investigated COVID-19 vaccines hesitancy. The following questions guided the investigation using literature review and data from various health portals including the Vaccine Makers Project (VMP), US Center for Disease Control (CDC), and USA Facts organization.