Socioeconomic privilege and political ideology are associated with racial disparity in COVID-19 vaccination.

Vaccine uptake is critical for mitigating the impact of COVID-19 in the United States, but structural inequities pose a serious threat to progress. Racial disparities in vaccination persist despite the increased availability of vaccines. We ask what factors are associated with such disparities. We combine data from state, federal, and other sources to estimate the relationship between social determinants of health and racial disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations at the county level. Analyzing vaccination data from 19 April 2021, when nearly half of the US adult population was at least partially vaccinated, we find associations between racial disparities in COVID-19 vaccination and median income (negative), disparity in high school education (positive), and vote share for the Republican party in the 2020 presidential election (negative), while vaccine hesitancy is not related to disparities. We examine differences in associations for COVID-19 vaccine uptake as compared with influenza vaccine. Key differences include an amplified role for socioeconomic privilege factors and political ideology, reflective of the unique societal context in which the pandemic has unfolded.

Social Media Strategies for Health Promotion by Nonprofit Organizations: Multiple Case Study Design.

BACKGROUND: Nonprofit organizations have always played an important role in health promotion. Social media is widely used in health promotion efforts. However, there is a lack of evidence on how decisions regarding the use of social media are undertaken by nonprofit organizations that want to increase their impact in terms of health promotion. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to understand why and how nonprofit health care organizations put forth social media strategies to achieve health promotion goals. METHODS: A multiple case study design, using in-depth interviews and a content analysis of each social media strategy, was employed to analyze the use of social media tools by six North American nonprofit organizations dedicated to cancer prevention and management. RESULTS: The resulting process model demonstrates how social media strategies are enacted by nonprofit organizations to achieve health promotion goals. They put forth three types of social media strategies relative to their use of existing information and communication technologies (ICT)-replicate, transform, or innovate-each affecting the content, format, and delivery of the message differently. Organizations make sense of the social media innovation in complementarity with existing ICT. CONCLUSIONS: For nonprofit organizations, implementing a social media strategy can help achieve health promotion goals. The process of social media strategy implementation could benefit from understanding the rationale, the opportunities, the challenges, and the potentially complementary role of existing ICT strategies.