Millennial Vaccination Habits Vary by Ethnicity

Millennial Vaccination Habits Vary by
Ethnicity
But opinions about early childhood and HPV vaccines
contradict. Why the difference?
Whenever there is an outbreak of the measles, mumps or some other vaccine
preventable infectious disease, we hear a lot about herd immunity – the notion that if
90%-95% of a population is vaccinated infectious diseases cannot get a toehold in a
population. This idea, however, may be providing us a false sense of security
because for herd immunity to work, vaccinated individuals need to be
distributed evenly among a population to act as buffers against transmission and, it
turns out, they’re not.
Earlier this year, we ran a nationally representative survey among 570 adults with
kids and asked them about their children’s vaccinations. As a whole, the results are
not great but acceptable. 85% of parents either did or intend to vaccinate their
children according to recommended schedules with another 10% vaccinating but on
a longer, though not recommended, schedule. Based on this, we might take comfort
in the knowledge that 90% to 95% of kids will be fully vaccinated by the time they
start school.
Age and Ethnicity Matter
But will that be the case in your child’s school? That depends on who your neighbors
are. It turns out there are large differences in vaccination habits driven by age and
ethnicity. 91% of Gen X parents either did or intend to vaccinate according to the
recommended schedules while only 78% of Millennial parents are on board with this
approach. Adding in the 15% of Millennial parents who plan to vaccinate on a longer
schedule brings us to more acceptable 93% but uncertainty remains as to the herd
immunity of younger age groups.
When combining age and ethnicity, the difference in early childhood vaccination
rates becomes even more stark.
When adding in those parents who chose to vaccinate on longer schedules all ethnic
groups climb above 90% though White Millennials still have the highest rate of
parents who say they won’t vaccinate at all at 6% and Hispanics the lowest at 3%.
HPV Vaccine is an Exception
Why aren’t these parents vaccinating their young kids according to schedule? The
most common answer is “I don’t think it’s necessary to immunize” followed by “I don’t
think immunizations are effective.” Fears of autism, fortunately, are starting to wane
as this reason did not even break the top five. White Millennial Parents, however,

appear to have a change of heart when it comes to the HPV vaccine which is
generally given at around ages 11 and 12. Here they’re ahead of the curve.
Why the change? What happens between the ages of 2 and 11 that makes White
Millennial parents decide vaccinating is OK and Asian market research and African
American parents start to question its merits? Unlike the early childhood vaccines
which are considered unnecessary or ineffective by the abstainers, the #1 reason
given for not letting their kids get the HPV vaccine is that it “Makes them sick.”
Where are parents getting the idea from? The internet may be one reason. Currently,
the #4 organic search result on Google after the CDC website and a couple other
pro-vaccine sites for the search “Is the HPV vaccine safe?” is an article entitled “It’s
official: HPV vaccine, the most dangerous vaccine yet” published on
anhinternational.org (Alliance for Natural Health).
Google search results, however, can’t be the sole reason we’re seeing differences
by ethnicity since negative articles about early childhood vaccines are also prevalent
and the vaccination likelihood trend by ethnicity is reversed for the HPV vaccine. The
answer? Well, the base sizes we’re dealing with here are small and further research
is needed but directionally it looks like the answer may be attitudes towards sex.
Among parents that said they have not or would not allow their kids to receive the
HPV Vaccine exactly 0% of White parents gave “My children are not sexually active
and don’t need this vaccine” as their answer whereas 17% of Hispanics and African
Americans market research and 26% of Asians gave this as the reason for not
vaccinating.
These results remind us that human beings are complicated and that opinions vary
by age, ethnicity and several other factors that we don’t have time to analyze here.
One thing is certain, however, the measles, mumps and the human papilloma virus
are equal-opportunity threats and the sooner we can get everyone on the same page
to combat them the better.
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November 9th, 2017|African-American Market Research, Asian Market Research, Blog, Government
Research, Hispanic Market Research, Integrated Market Research, Multicultural Consumers
About the Author: Roy Eduardo Kokoyachuk
Roy is a Managing Partner at ThinkNow Research. He started his career at Warner
Bros. Media Research. A desire to pursue multicultural market research full-time led
him to join a full service Hispanic & multicultural market research company, in 2003
as Vice President of Advertising Research. He became Executive Vice President in
2006 and opened an operations center in Tijuana, Mexico and directed the
company’s entry into online research. In 2009 he initiated the creation of the first
nationally representative opt-in market research panel of U.S. Hispanics -
CadaCabeza. This panel broke new ground in panel building by focusing on the
recruitment of Spanish speaking Hispanics as well as the English speakers typically

found on online panels. He co-founded ThinkNow Research to further pursue his
passion for multicultural consumer insights.