IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1397.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Lasting Impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitation among African Americans

Author

Listed:
  • Hou, Xiaolong
  • Jiao, Yang
  • Shen, Leilei
  • Chen, Zhuo

Abstract

It is widely recognized that African Americans have a higher level of mistrust towards the medical and health care sector, which results in insufficient utilization of public health services, low participation in clinical research, and vaccination hesitancy. While the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has been identified as a key factor in this mistrust, its specific influence on COVID-19 vaccination uptake among African Americans remains unexplored. Our paper fills this research gap. Our results suggest that the difference in COVID-19 vaccination rates between communities with low and high proportions of Black residents decreases during the study period, but the gap persists. Notably, counties closer to Tuskegee exhibit a slower rate of progress in reducing the racial disparity in COVID-19 vaccination, indicating that the lingering mistrust stemming from the Tuskegee Study has contributed to unequal vaccination rates between African Americans and the rest of America.

Suggested Citation

  • Hou, Xiaolong & Jiao, Yang & Shen, Leilei & Chen, Zhuo, 2024. "The Lasting Impact of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitation among African Americans," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1397, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/283882/1/GLO-DP-1397.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Do, D. Phuong & Finch, Brian Karl & Basurto-Davila, Ricardo & Bird, Chloe & Escarce, Jose & Lurie, Nicole, 2008. "Does place explain racial health disparities? Quantifying the contribution of residential context to the Black/white health gap in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1258-1268, October.
    2. David M. Cutler & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Tom Vogl, 2008. "Socioeconomic Status and Health: Dimensions and Mechanisms," NBER Working Papers 14333, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    4. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    5. Sara Lowes & Eduardo Montero, 2021. "The Legacy of Colonial Medicine in Central Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(4), pages 1284-1314, April.
    6. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc, 2010. "Inherited Trust and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2060-2092, December.
    7. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Nicole Schneeweis & Rudolf Winter‐Ebmer, 2016. "The Causal Effect of Education on Health: What is the Role of Health Behaviors?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 314-336, March.
    8. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2006. "Media Bias and Reputation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 280-316, April.
    9. Guido Tabellini, 2010. "Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 677-716, June.
    10. Marcella Alsan & Owen Garrick & Grant Graziani, 2019. "Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4071-4111, December.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/432sbils8u9t7qa99cii5psht1 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Alex Albright & Jeremy A. Cook & James J. Feigenbaum & Laura Kincaide & Jason Long & Nathan Nunn, 2021. "After the Burning: The Economic Effects of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre," NBER Working Papers 28985, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Bruhin, Adrian & Goette, Lorenz & Haenni, Simon & Jiang, Lingqing, 2020. "Spillovers of prosocial motivation: Evidence from an intervention study on blood donors," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    14. Mark Hayward & Melonie Heron, 1999. "Racial inequality in active life among adult americans," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(1), pages 77-91, February.
    15. Kass, N.E., 2001. "An ethics framework for public health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(11), pages 1776-1782.
    16. Samuel Bazzi & Martin Fiszbein & Mesay Gebresilasse, 2020. "Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2329-2368, November.
    17. Cubbin, C. & Pickle, L.W. & Fingerhut, L., 2000. "Social context and geographic patterns of homicide among US black and white males," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 90(4), pages 579-587.
    18. Liyousew Borga & Andrew Clark & Conchita D’ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2022. "Characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-04156060, HAL.
    19. Nathan Nunn & Leonard Wantchekon, 2011. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3221-3252, December.
    20. Bo Bian & Jingjing Li & Ting Xu & Natasha Z. Foutz, 2022. "Individualism during Crises," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 368-385, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    2. Nikolova, Milena & Popova, Olga & Otrachshenko, Vladimir, 2022. "Stalin and the origins of mistrust," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    3. Okoye, Dozie, 2021. "Things fall apart? Missions, institutions, and interpersonal trust," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    4. Ivanov, Denis, 2023. "Institutional reforms and social trust: Quasi-experimental evidence from the Caucasian states," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 829-859.
    5. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2016. "Long-Term Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1401-1436, December.
    6. Choi, Jaerim & Lim, Sunghun, 2023. "Ostrom Meets the Pandemic: Lessons from Asian Rice Farming Traditions," 97th Annual Conference, March 27-29, 2023, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 334543, Agricultural Economics Society - AES.
    7. Nathan Nunn & Leonard Wantchekon, 2011. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3221-3252, December.
    8. Sangnier, Marc, 2013. "Does trust favor macroeconomic stability?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 653-668.
    9. Hu, Shan & Yu, Yongze & Fei, Qingyu, 2023. "Social credit and patent quality: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Menyashev, Rinat & Natkhov, Timur & Polishchuk, Leonid & Syunyaev, Georgiy, 2011. "New Institutional Economics: A state-of-the-art review for economic sociologists," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 13(1), pages 12-21.
    11. Jo, Ara & Carattini, Stefano, 2021. "Trust and CO2 emissions: Cooperation on a global scale," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 922-937.
    12. Corrado Giulietti & Enrico Rettore & Sara Tonini, 2023. "The chips are down: the influence of family on children’s trust formation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 211-233, January.
    13. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino & La Cara, Barbara, 2016. "Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 78-92.
    14. Gioacchino Fazio & Francesca Giambona & Erasmo Vassallo & Elli Vassiliadis, 2018. "A Measure of Trust: The Italian Regional Divide in a Latent Class Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 209-242, November.
    15. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2014. "Trust, Growth, and Well-Being: New Evidence and Policy Implications," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 2, pages 49-120, Elsevier.
    16. Alessandra Cassar & Pauline Grosjean & Sam Whitt, 2013. "Legacies of violence: trust and market development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 285-318, September.
    17. Ruben Durante & Giovanna Labartino & Roberto Perotti, 2011. "Academic Dynasties: Decentralization and Familism in the Italian Academia," NBER Working Papers 17572, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7t43ra4ari8aip42sh8nhkdk48 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Perez-Truglia, Ricardo, 2018. "Markets, trust and cultural biases: evidence from eBay," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 17-27.
    20. Lecce, Giampaolo & Ogliari, Laura, 2019. "Institutional Transplant and Cultural Proximity: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Prussia," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(4), pages 1060-1093, December.
    21. Popova, Olga & See, Sarah Grace & Nikolova, Milena & Otrachshenko, Vladimir, 2023. "The Societal Costs of Inflation and Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 16541, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vaccination; COVID-19; Racial Disparity; Tuskegee;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • N9 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.