Trends in COVID-19 vaccination intent and factors associated with deliberation and reluctance among adult homeless shelter residents and staff, 1 November 2020 to 28 February 2021-King County, Washington

Introduction: Little is known about COVID-19 vaccination intent among people experiencing homelessness. This study assesses surveyed COVID-19 vaccination intent among adult homeless shelter residents and staff and identifies factors associated with vaccine deliberation (responded undecided) and reluctance (responded no), including time trends. Methods: From 11/1/2020-2/28/21, we conducted repeated cross-sectional surveys at nine shelters in King County, WA as part of ongoing community-based SARS-CoV-2 surveillance. We used a multinomial model to identify characteristics associated with vaccine deliberation and reluctance. Results: A total of 969 unique staff (n = 297) and residents (n = 672) participated and provided 3966 survey responses. Among residents, 53.7% (n = 361) were vaccine accepting, 28.1% reluctant, 17.6% deliberative, and 0.6% already vaccinated, whereas among staff 56.2% were vaccine accepting, 14.1% were reluctant, 16.5% were deliberative, and 13.1% already vaccinated at their last survey. We observed higher odds of vaccine deliberation or reluctance among Black/African American individuals, those who did not receive a seasonal influenza vaccine, and those with lower educational attainment. There was no significant trend towards vaccine acceptance. Conclusions: Strong disparities in vaccine intent based on race, education, and prior vaccine history were observed. Increased vaccine intent over the study period was not detected. An intersectional, personcentered approach to addressing health inequities by public health authorities planning vaccination campaigns in shelters is recommended. Clinical Trial Registry Number: NCT04141917. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study found significant disparities in COVID-19 vaccination intent among homeless individuals based on race, education level, and prior vaccine history. There was no observed trend towards increased vaccine acceptance over the study period.