La Vacuna: Google Trends insights about vaccines & U.S. Latinx

• In Event: 41061 - Section on Latina/o Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Health, Social Safety Nets, and Aging in Latinx Communities

Abstract

Within the U.S. Hispanic communities have persistently exhibited lower vaccination rates and higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. This present study is but a first step in trying to quantify some of the factors that might predict or impact how rapidly and widespread the vaccines are rolled out in this community.

SAMPLING: Google searches in the United States were obtained for the past twenty years for the search term vacuna (Spanish for vaccine). Previous research by the principal investigator had studied U.S. vaccination hesitancy by looking for English language search terms such as “vaccine” or “anti-vax.”

FINDINGS: The strongest predictor of searches for vacuna was the proportion of LatinX living in that state (rho = +.858, p < .001). Searches for vacuna were concentrated in areas of rural workers (e.g., southeast California), the Rio Grande Valley, or recent arrivals (e.g., Chicago, Miami, NYC suburbs). Regarding Rentfrow’s geographical data for the Big 5 Personality Traits, we found no correlation with neuroticism, we found more vacuna searches in those states with higher openness.
DISCUSSION: The biggest challenge with the interpretation of Google Trends data is whether the same individuals in a given geographical area who are vaccine hesitant are the people who account for very high scores on other predictor variables. So, LatinX harvesters of row crops in Calexico might be looking for a vacuna while the high openness scores could be coming from White, educated residents of Palo Alto and Berkeley, and both of these populations are establishing the California data point.

Authors

• T.L. Brink, Crafton Hills College

• Andrea Stefan Velazquez, Cruz Roja Mexicana