(178) Association between perceived ethnic discrimination and receipt of COVID-19 vaccine in pregnancy or postpartum

To determine the association between COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy or postpartum and perceived ethnic discrimination

Study Design: Pregnant patients receiving prenatal care at a Midwestern academic institution were approached between June 2021 and March 2022 to complete a web-based Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire (PED-Q). The PED-Q is a validated 17-item scale measuring perceived interpersonal racial and ethnic discrimination through four domains: workspace/school domain, exclusion domain, stigma domain, and threat domain, with each domain containing questions rated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from “never” to “very often”.  All four domains were summarized in a lifetime discrimination score ranging from 1 to 5. The primary outcome was receipt of COVID-19 vaccination.  A multivariate logistic regression model was used to examine the association between “lifetime discrimination score” and COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy or postpartum.

Results: Of the 289 pregnant patients who completed the PED-Q, 219 (75.8%) received the COVID-19 vaccine and 70 (24.2%) declined. For each domain of PED-Q, and for the combined score of lifetime discrimination, a higher score was associated with a higher rate of declining the COVID-19 vaccine (Table 1). After adjusting for potential cofounders, each unit increase in lifetime exposure to perceived discrimination was associated with ~ two times higher odds of not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine (aOR 1.97, 95% CI 1.01-3.86) (Table 2).

Conclusion: We found that higher lifetime exposure to perceived discrimination was associated with higher risk of declining COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy or postpartum.