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COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans

BACKGROUND: Older adults are particularly at risk for severe illness or death from COVID-19. Accordingly, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) has prioritized this population group in its COVID-19 vaccination strategy. This study examines the receptivity of Veterans enrolled in the VA’s Geriatric...

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Autores principales: Wyte-Lake, Tamar, Levy, Cari, Hovsepian, Sona, Mudoh, Yvonne, Schmitz, Cheryl, Dobalian, Aram
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9366126/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35953851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13882-7
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author Wyte-Lake, Tamar
Levy, Cari
Hovsepian, Sona
Mudoh, Yvonne
Schmitz, Cheryl
Dobalian, Aram
author_facet Wyte-Lake, Tamar
Levy, Cari
Hovsepian, Sona
Mudoh, Yvonne
Schmitz, Cheryl
Dobalian, Aram
author_sort Wyte-Lake, Tamar
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Older adults are particularly at risk for severe illness or death from COVID-19. Accordingly, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) has prioritized this population group in its COVID-19 vaccination strategy. This study examines the receptivity of Veterans enrolled in the VA’s Geriatric Patient Aligned Care Team (GeriPACT) to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. GeriPACT is an outpatient primary care program that utilizes multi-disciplinary teams to provide health services to older Veterans. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with 42 GeriPACT-enrolled Veterans from five states. Participants were asked to identify barriers to vaccine acceptance. We gathered data from January-March 2021 and analyzed them using qualitative methods. RESULTS: Both White and African American GeriPACT Veterans had minimal vaccine hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine. On-line registration and ineligibility of a spouse/caregiver for vaccination were primary barriers to early vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: As the first wave of early adopters of the COVID-19 vaccination effort nears completion, targeted strategies are needed to understand and respond to vaccine hesitancy to lower the risk of subsequent waves of infections. The 2021 SAVE LIVES Act, begins to address identified vaccination barriers by permitting vaccination of Veteran spouses and caregivers, but consideration must be given to creating alternatives to on-line registration and allowing spouses and caregivers to register for appointments together.
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spelling pubmed-93661262022-08-11 COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans Wyte-Lake, Tamar Levy, Cari Hovsepian, Sona Mudoh, Yvonne Schmitz, Cheryl Dobalian, Aram BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Older adults are particularly at risk for severe illness or death from COVID-19. Accordingly, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) has prioritized this population group in its COVID-19 vaccination strategy. This study examines the receptivity of Veterans enrolled in the VA’s Geriatric Patient Aligned Care Team (GeriPACT) to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. GeriPACT is an outpatient primary care program that utilizes multi-disciplinary teams to provide health services to older Veterans. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with 42 GeriPACT-enrolled Veterans from five states. Participants were asked to identify barriers to vaccine acceptance. We gathered data from January-March 2021 and analyzed them using qualitative methods. RESULTS: Both White and African American GeriPACT Veterans had minimal vaccine hesitancy towards the COVID-19 vaccine. On-line registration and ineligibility of a spouse/caregiver for vaccination were primary barriers to early vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: As the first wave of early adopters of the COVID-19 vaccination effort nears completion, targeted strategies are needed to understand and respond to vaccine hesitancy to lower the risk of subsequent waves of infections. The 2021 SAVE LIVES Act, begins to address identified vaccination barriers by permitting vaccination of Veteran spouses and caregivers, but consideration must be given to creating alternatives to on-line registration and allowing spouses and caregivers to register for appointments together. BioMed Central 2022-08-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9366126/ /pubmed/35953851 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13882-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Wyte-Lake, Tamar
Levy, Cari
Hovsepian, Sona
Mudoh, Yvonne
Schmitz, Cheryl
Dobalian, Aram
COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title_full COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title_fullStr COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title_short COVID-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older Veterans
title_sort covid-19 vaccine adoption and hesitancy among older veterans
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9366126/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35953851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13882-7
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