Measuring College Students’ with Disabilities Attitudes Toward Taking COVID-19 Vaccines

Abstract

This survey explores attitudes of 245 currently enrolled college students with disabilities regarding their comfort taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Results suggest most college students with disabilities are willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine if their institution requires it to return to campus in subsequent semesters. However, many students with disabilities would not feel comfortable with a vaccine mandate mid-semester and would consider withdrawing, especially among older students with disabilities and first generation college students with disabilities. Implications for postsecondary policy and leadership are addressed.

Returning at Any Cost? How Black College Students Feel Toward COVID Vaccines and Institutional Mandates

“…Data in Table 2 suggest most African American students expressed modest discomfort with COVID-19 vaccines, as a “3” on the Likert scale indicated “slight discomfort,” with “4” indicating “neither comfort nor discomfort.” Data also suggests that African American men with disabilities (mean = 3.1) expressed the least amount of comfort, while Black women (4.2), especially Black women already attending classes in-person (5.0) expressed the greatest levels of comfort. Here, it is important to understand differences between these groups, as African American men do not access higher education at the same level as their women peers (Allen, 1988; Griffith et al, 2019), and students with disabilities across every race and ethnicity are greatly underrepresented on college campuses across country (Taylor & Charran, 2023). If African American men hold the intersectional identity of being African American and having a disability, data in this study suggest this intersectional population may be the least comfortable with a COVID-19 vaccine and may avoid participation in higher education, further marginalizing this population.…”

“…By parsing the data by demographic, the research team was able to view the findings through an intersectional lens to explore how African American college students may feel toward COVID-19 vaccines. Prior studies investigating African American vaccine hesitancy have explored the intersectionality of African American attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines by age and ethnicity (Bogart et al, 2022; Momplaisir et al, 2021; Warren et al, 2020), but scant research has not addressed how one’s disability status, postsecondary enrollment status or institution type, or first-generation in college student status may affect one’s comfort toward taking a COVID-19 vaccine (Taylor & Charran, 2023). Only limited research has explored COVID-19 vaccine attitudes held by college aged populations with limited discussions of race and racial equity (Mant et al, 2021; Taylor et al, 2022; Taylor & Childs, 2021).…”