Hamilton study considers vaccine hesitancy in Indigenous, South Asian communities – insauga
March 17, 2022
The group, working through the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and McMaster University, recently commenced the study, called COVID CommUNITY, to investigate the cause for higher COVID-19 infection rates among South Asian and Indigenous populations.
“While the COVID-19 virus has been studied for the past year, the majority of study participants have been white European origin so we really don’t know the burden of infection experience by some diverse communities, response to vaccines, and vaccine confidence in such communities,” said Dr. Sonia Anand, who is a vascular medicine specialist at HHS, senior scientist at PHRI and professor of medicine at McMaster University.
The South Asian community, according to researchers, have a five to ten times greater risk of infection and almost double the risk of death from COVID-19 compared to those of white European ancestry.
