Vaccination Rates in Universities and Colleges

[apl68]

Our state Department of Health (and I assume others in other states) is trying to keep tabs on vaccination rates at colleges around the state:


https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jun/07/state-tallies-vaccinations-among-college-students/



The big state schools are reporting 40-50% rates of vaccination so far among students planning to be there in the fall.  Alma Mater reports just over 40% so far.  A number of other schools report rates of under 30%.  The article has comments from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, an HCBU with a low rate of vaccination.  They're talking about setting up "informational clinics" to educate students and parents about the vaccines during summer visits and orientation sessions.  They're also planning to offer shots at every fall football game, and seeking corporate sponsors to fund incentive prizes for those who get their shots.  And they're looking at seeing whether they can give students a choice of whether to have vaccinated or unvaccinated roommates.  The state has preemptively barred state-supported schools from mandating vaccination in students and staff, so they're going to have to use persuasion.


Any news on how institutions in other states are doing vaccine-wise?

[Puget]

We are requiring vaccinations (private R1), so it will be 100% by fall. Our dashboard currently shows 86% of students currently coming to campus (mostly grad students plus some undergrads doing research fellowships, since summer classes are all online) and 83% of faculty and staff are fully vaccinated. That is probably an undercount since if you weren't vaccinated on campus you have to upload pictures of your card to the campus portal, and I'm sure some people haven't gotten around to that yet-- there is now a carrot to do so however in the form of less frequent testing (only every 2 weeks).

[Hibush]

Also R1. Faculty >96%. Grad students >86% (being younger, they became eligible later. Most of the rest have probablyg gotten at least Jab #1.
Undergrads. Gone!  Also very high, we require them to be vaccinated to go on campus in the fall.
Staff similar to grad students.

[Caracal]

That is probably an undercount since if you weren't vaccinated on campus you have to upload pictures of your card to the campus portal, and I'm sure some people haven't gotten around to that yet-- there is now a carrot to do so however in the form of less frequent testing (only every 2 weeks).

Ha, that's me.

[Aster]

Our vaccination rates are terrible. But we're open ranked and have a high minority population. Less than 10% of the african americans in my state are reporting as vaccinated, compared to over 75%  for caucasians. The baffling race disparities are really bad. I have a sinking suspicion that Big Urban College may become a covid hotspot this Fall when we reopen. Faculty and staff will be nearly all vaccinated, but I'm not sure if even a third of our students will be by August.

[Caracal]

Our vaccination rates are terrible. But we're open ranked and have a high minority population. Less than 10% of the african americans in my state are reporting as vaccinated, compared to over 75%  for caucasians. The baffling race disparities are really bad. I have a sinking suspicion that Big Urban College may become a covid hotspot this Fall when we reopen. Faculty and staff will be nearly all vaccinated, but I'm not sure if even a third of our students will be by August.

Hmm, not sure about those numbers. I looked and I can't find any states where the disparates are that high and the vaccination rate among black people was that low.

The disparates exist, but I can't say I find them particularly baffling, given all of the other disparates in income and health care. To that point I would hope your school will make a huge effort to get students vaccinated in the fall. A university should be a perfect setting to make it really, really easy to get shots.

[Ruralguy]

I think Aster may be confusing "percent of total who have received vaccines who are in a particular subgroup" with "percent of the subgroup's population that have received vaccines."  At least, if that's the case, it would be consistent with the numbers I see on line.

[Aster]

Try this website. This is where our institution and our local news reports are getting their reporting data from.

https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/

******

Wait... you're right. Now that I'm looking at the data tables myself, I am seeing very close match ups to percent vaccinated: percent of population for most race groups in most states.

Oh my. This is not at all how Big Urban College has been sending out news reports in the last few weeks. I am mortified.

It looks like in our state, african americans are only getting vaccinated at half the rate of most everyone else, but it's not as terrible as was stated to us earlier. We were given a specific number, and I can see that number reported, but it's the wrong number to look at.

[Ruralguy]

OK...

[Ruralguy]

I think this demonstrates my point:

"The CDC reports demographic characteristics, including race/ethnicity, of people receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at the national level. As of May 25, 2021, CDC reported that race/ethnicity was known for 56% of people who had received at least one dose of the vaccine. Among this group, nearly two thirds were White (62%), 14% were Hispanic, 9% were Black, 6% were Asian, 1% were American Indian or Alaska Native, and <1% were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, while 8% reported multiple or other race. However, CDC data also show that recent vaccinations are reaching larger shares of Hispanic, Asian, and Black populations. Over one in five (23%)  vaccines administered in the past 14 days have gone to Hispanic people, 8% to Asian people, and 10% to Black people (Figure 1). These recent trends suggest a narrowing of racial gaps in vaccinations at the national level, particularly for Hispanic people, who have recently received a larger share of vaccinations compared to their share of the total population (23% vs. 17%). While these data provide helpful insights at a national level, to date, CDC is not publicly reporting state-level data on the racial/ethnic composition of people vaccinated."

[Diogenes]

Ours sent out a campus email to a large sample of students simply asking yes or no to being vaccinated. Response rate was better than usual for these kinds of things, but it was still low and the selection bias and social desirability bias for this would be astronomical! Of course people that are vaccinated are going to be more likely to answer and some unvaxxed might lie about it.
So we all got an email showing a result that was over twice the rate of our service area and bragging about it...garbage in, garbage out.

[apl68]

Ours sent out a campus email to a large sample of students simply asking yes or no to being vaccinated. Response rate was better than usual for these kinds of things, but it was still low and the selection bias and social desirability bias for this would be astronomical! Of course people that are vaccinated are going to be more likely to answer and some unvaxxed might lie about it.
So we all got an email showing a result that was over twice the rate of our service area and bragging about it...garbage in, garbage out.

An e-mail survey is an awfully poor way to go about doing something like this, all right.