Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#31

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

Not sure how great of a source this is - but black people at all education levels seem to be about ~8% less likely than the general population to get vaccinated [1].

However, black people at most education levels are poorer than the average population (unfortunately) - and according to this chart - poor people are also much more likely to not be vaccinated [2].

You can't really make any conclusions from the two charts - but I would guess a lot of this is because black people are disproportionately poorer than average.

[1] https://www.shadac.org/news/HPSVax-06.21#:~:text=47.0%25)%20....

[2] https://www.axios.com/covid-vaccines-low-income-poor-workers...

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#32

Post by bobbylarrybobby » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #9

> This theory checks off certain boxes that make it resonate well within current discourse frameworks, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. If the coronavirus vaccines were only being given to black people, then you could see how someone might reason that it is a trick. But they are being given to everyone, including over 100 million white people. Are we meant to think that black people who aren’t getting the v…

How do you know that the government is giving the same vaccines to whites and non-whites?

I mean, I'm white, and I'm pretty sure that they are, but I could forgive a black person for not being so sure.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#33

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

crackercrews wrote: post #7

MikeUt wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To show that awareness of Tuskegee is, if anything, negatively correlated with vaccination rate, and therefore unlikely to be the driver of lower vaccination rates among Blacks. Edit: Correction: As crackercrews pointed out, I wrote "negatively correlated", when I should have written "positively correlated".

Doesn't it show a positive correlation?

Maybe if you showed awareness of the incident you could then draw a correlation. I don't know how many people in the black community or otherwise are aware of it

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#34

Post by Mountain_Skies » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:26 AM UTC

Has anyone tried actually surveying the black community for an explanation?

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#35

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #22

Talanes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's way too big of a hypothetical to make any of the statistics derived from it worth anything.

Bruenig is just being humorously understated here. Obviously more educated people are more likely to know history. Come on.

I think you're overlooking the fact that black people are much more likely to know about it than white people, and that it's not a function of educational level alone.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#36

Post by MikeUt » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

crackercrews wrote: post #11

It seems like the Tuskegee narrative could have been correct when vaccines were first rolled out. At that time, front-line and medical workers were being urged to get vaccinated. These populations have a disproportionate share of minorities, so it would have been plausible that they would have felt like guinea pigs. But now that people of all races are being vaccinated, this idea doesn't make sense anymore.

> These populations have a disproportionate share of minorities, so it would have been plausible that they would have felt like guinea pigs.

That's grossly overstating it.

Whites make up 78% of all employed people, and 72.5% of all healthcare and social assistance workers. They also make up more than 62% of workers in every single subcategory of "healthcare and human assistance". That does not strike me as even remotely under-represented enough that vaccination of healthcare workers could be seen as "whites experimenting on minorities" - not when most healthcare workers are white.

Let me put it this way: 17.4% of healthcare and social assistance workers are black. Meaning that for every one black worker that got vaccinated, more than four white workers would be vaccinated. In what way is it reasonable to see that as "whites treating minorities as guinea pigs"?

Source for employment figures: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat18.htm

Edit: If we also look at the "front-line worker who works at target, walmart, grocery stores, etc.", that would correspond to the "Supermarkets and other grocery (except convenience) stores" and "Convenience stores" categories, which are 78.4% and 72.1% white, respectively.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#37

Post by Mountain_Skies » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

dudeinjapan wrote: post #27

newacct583 wrote: post #19

This doesn't seem like a hard question to answer. Black americans are underserved by the health care system in basically all other ways. They see fewer doctors, have fewer clinics in neighborhoods where they make up majorities, get fewer referrals from the same doctors, get discharged faster and receive less treatment for the same conditions... I don't have links, but studies like this are everywhere. So, to me the q…

Access to clinics is not the limiting factor here. One can get a vaccine in 10 minutes by walking into any Walmart, Walgreens, or CVS. Even barbershops are giving them.

In urban areas you're right but I wonder about those who live in rural areas. Having spent part of my youth in a rural area that was majority black, my first instinct would be to set up clinics at churches. Not everyone has a way to get to the county seat during business hours when the county health department is open but one way or another, pretty much everyone found a way to get to church on Sunday.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#38

Post by civilized » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #32

civilized wrote: post #9

> This theory checks off certain boxes that make it resonate well within current discourse frameworks, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. If the coronavirus vaccines were only being given to black people, then you could see how someone might reason that it is a trick. But they are being given to everyone, including over 100 million white people. Are we meant to think that black people who aren’t getting the v…

How do you know that the government is giving the same vaccines to whites and non-whites? I mean, I'm white, and I'm pretty sure that they are, but I could forgive a black person for not being so sure.

How do we know that Hillary Clinton isn't harvesting adrenochrome from children?

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#39

Post by robbrown451 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #34

Has anyone tried actually surveying the black community for an explanation?

I'm not sure that would give an accurate answer.

If you were to ask the other big demographic, they'll tend to come up with all kinds of reasons such as "the vaccine is new and hasn't been tested enough" and the like. But at the end of the day, they are biased against it because others in their peer group are against it (or because they feel pressured by "the other side"). This is obvious due to the strong correlation to political leanings.

But they try to intellectualize it to be some other reason. They may not be lying, but they may not understand why they had a tendency to be averse to vaccination.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#40

Post by civilized » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #35

civilized wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bruenig is just being humorously understated here. Obviously more educated people are more likely to know history. Come on.

I think you're overlooking the fact that black people are much more likely to know about it than white people, and that it's not a function of educational level alone.

No, I'm not overlooking that supposed fact, which also isn't a fact. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221924/#!po=29...