The following article was copied and pasted from my electronic subscription to the Epoch Times.
Nearly 60 Percent of Americans in Heartland States Won’t Get COVID Vaccine Booster: Poll
The study was conducted by the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH), Emerson Polling’s long-time partner in health surveying.
Poll Results
To gather the information, Emerson College Polling conducted surveys of residents in the 22 Heartland states from Oct. 1 through Oct. 4. Surveyors also conducted a national survey by phone on Oct. 16 and Oct. 17. The sample sizes varied by state, surveyors noted.
Almost 3 in 5 Heartland residents said they would be unlikely to get the new COVID-19 vaccine, with the highest rejection rates coming from Wyoming at 74 percent, followed by Idaho. In the 12 states comprising the Heartland, only 43 percent of respondents planned to get the vaccine.
Polling results indicated that as public trust in the quality of government health care information waned, so too did the vaccine acceptance rate.
For example, about 70 percent of individuals polled in Idaho rated the quality of government health care information as poor or fair, and about 68 percent indicated they would not get the COVID-19 vaccine this year. In Arkansas, the same percentage of individuals rated the quality of health care information as poor or fair, with about 61 percent indicating they would not get the booster.
Kenneth H. Rabin, a CUNY SPH senior scholar, noted that these numbers are particularly alarming.
“These findings should be a wake-up call to health communicators, as we can no longer rely on mandates and must engage people in real conversations to encourage them to vaccinate themselves and their families,” he said in the Emerson College Polling press release.
Public perception of government health information was nearly equally poor in West Virginia (32 percent), Missouri (30 percent), and Michigan (30 percent).
In addition to their disfavorable view of government health information, many residents polled within the Heartland states believed their health care was worse than in other states. Thirty-eight percent of respondents in West Virginia said their health care is worse than in other states, followed by residents in Wyoming (36 percent), Montana (28 percent), Kentucky (27 percent), and Arkansas (25 percent).
However, residents in Midwestern states have a more positive perception of the health care in their region than those in the rest of the country.
“There is some good news here, however,” Mr. Rabin noted, “[in that] 37% of traditional Midwesterners said healthcare is better in their area compared to 32% of overall national respondents.”
About the Council for Quality Health Communication
The poll was commissioned to denote the formation of a new Council for Quality Health Communication at CUNY SPH. Forty U.S. and international health communication researchers and practitioners comprise the Council for Quality Health Communication. The group states that its mission is to help reestablish public loss of trust in health and science due to “the recent onslaught of health misinformation and disinformation,” according to the group’s Dec. 5 press release.
“If we cannot redress the increasing loss of public trust in science generally, and the field of public health in particular, we risk squandering priceless and hard-won knowledge that has benefited people everywhere,” said Georgetown University distinguished professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law and co-chair of the Council for Quality Health Communication in the press release.
The council’s goals include the following:
- “Develop, endorse, and disseminate recommendations and practices that recognize and support quality health communication programs” that utilize social media in both the private and public sectors.
- “Identify, highlight, and publish results of health communication research to help people better understand the difference between accurate health information and misinformation and disinformation.”
- “Advocate for policies and programs that promote quality health communication to policymakers, healthcare providers, journalists, civic and religious leaders, social media communities,” and others.
- “Stimulate meaningful and lasting public health dialogue on the benefits and risks of emerging communication technologies, including artificial intelligence.”
