Millennial Vaccination Habits Vary by Ethnicity

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