More Than 90% of LGBTQ+ U.S. Adults Have Received a COVID-19 Vaccine
Queer people might be stereotyped as bad at driving and math, but we're apparently pretty good at getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
A comprehensive new report from Community Marketing and Insights (CMI), The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation is shedding light on how LGBTQ+ Americans are faring amid the global fight against the novel coronavirus. The findings are actually pretty encouraging: Of the 15,042 LGBTQ+ adults surveyed this May and June, an overwhelming majority (92%) had received at least one vaccination for COVID-19, compared to just 71.3% of the general adult population in the United States.
David Paisley, senior director of research for CMI, said there are many reasons why LGBTQ+ Americans are more likely to be vaccinated than non-LGBTQ+ people, such as "higher percentages of the LGBTQ+ community being liberal, living in blue states, and living in urban areas."
Isolation and social distancing during COVID-19-related lockdowns has also negatively impacted the mental health of LGBTQ+ people, "which may have motivated quick vaccination to reenter the community."
Researchers also noted that factors like race and ethnicity, age, and gender skewed vaccination rates, albeit only slightly. Although vaccination rates among Black LGBTQ+ respondents were still relatively high (85%), they were higher for AAPI LGBTQ+ folks (96%) and white LGBTQ+ people (94%). This is in line with previous studies highlighting COVID-19's disparate impact on LGBTQ+ Americans of color, particularly Black LGBTQ+ folks.
The organizations involved with the report plan to continue making sure that "no one is left behind" in America's COVID-19 vaccination rollout, especially LGBTQ+ people of color. And despite what skeptics and anti-vaxers purport, these shots work. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), getting vaccinated is proven to help prevent severe disease and death from COVID-19. It's especially important given the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19, which is rapidly spreading across the U.S. We need shots in arms, people!
