UW Study Measures Vaccination Hesitancy

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine and COVID Collaborative recently launched a new tool that shows data on people’s openness to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine by ZIP code and county for the entire United States. As of June 10, the percentage of people who express some degree of vaccine hesitancy varies across ZIP codes in some counties by more than 50 percent.

“This data visualization is designed for health officials and other policymakers who are working to educate their constituents about the safety and benefits of COVID-19 vaccines,” said John Bridgeland, co-founder and CEO of COVID Collaborative. “By making this data easily accessible down to the level of individual ZIP codes, IHME and COVID Collaborative can help ensure that those efforts reach the ‘movable middle’; those people who aren’t yet vaccinated but are open to being convinced.”

The model shows estimates for more than 30,000 ZIP codes in the United States compared to just 3,000 counties. In more than 670 ZIP codes, some 20 percent of unvaccinated people answered “probably yes” or “probably no” to a survey question asking whether they would get a COVID-19 vaccine. The visualization tool allows health officials and other users to view this group who may be most open to receiving more information about vaccines or toggle to include those who answered “definitely not” when asked about their intentions for getting vaccinated.