Fact Sheet: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Vaccination in the U.S. and Colorado

As COVID-19 disproportionately impacts communities of color, and as these same communities are increasingly targeted with misinformation about vaccine safety, it is evident that systemic racism continues to drive a serious public health crisis in Colorado and beyond. In the U.S., this public health crisis extends to vaccination, where disparities exist in vaccination coverage between racial and ethnic groups. In general, Whites and Asians have higher immunization rates than people of color. However, these trends are not universal for all vaccines and are affected by a variety of social, systemic and historical factors. This fact sheet outlines these disparities in vaccination rates, as well as COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on communities of color, the social and systemic causes of vaccine disparities, barriers to accessing vaccination and the troubling trend of vaccine misinformation being targeted directly at communities of color.