Higher COVID-19 Vaccination Rates among Unemployed in the United States: State Level Study in the First 100 days of Vaccine Initiation

BackgroundSocioeconomic factors may impact the efficiency of COVID vaccine rollout; however, there are limited studies that examine how state socioeconomic status influences the speed of vaccine distribution. This study aimed to demonstrate how employment rates as one of the main socioeconomic factors affect vaccine coverage in 50 states of the United States. MethodsThis study has obtained vaccine data for the 50 states in the United States, available in the electronic online database ourworldindata.org. In addition to employment rates, other socioeconomic determinants including poverty level, uninsured rates, population density, homeownership, educational level, the percentage of the elderly population, and educational level were obtained from ourworldindata.org data platform. Data from these 50 states were used for regression analyses to examine the relationship between socioeconomic and vaccination rates. ResultsOur study revealed a positive linear association between unemployment and vaccine rates, and states with higher unemployment rates were more likely to have higher vaccination rates. However, other socioeconomic measures do not significantly associate with vaccine coverage. ConclusionDespite other studies showing that vulnerable populations had lower vaccine rates, this study shows that states with higher unemployment rates are more likely to be vaccinated. However, the finding suggests a need for more research for the states with higher than 5% unemployment rates, as they had a lower vaccine coverage than states with a range of 4% to 5% unemployment rates.