Incentivizing Immunity: Black and Latinx Individuals’ Attitudes About COVID-19 Vaccine Incentives.

Publication date: Jul 22, 2025

Identify drivers of COVID-19 initial and booster vaccinations. Minority communities were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, yet many expressed vaccine hesitancy. While a combination of incentivized strategies, namely financial and workplace rewards or mandates, seems to have boosted the rate of vaccination, little is known about the role of vaccine incentives in Black and Latinx communities specifically. Drawing from postcolonial theory and health belief model, our goal was to identify, through qualitative interviews, the perceptions of incentives, such as financial, travel, and employment related, in encouraging vaccination amongst Black and Latinx communities. Interviews were conducted between 2022 and 2023 with 24 Black and 10 Latinx Michigan residents self-reported as up-to-date (2022, completed primary series; 2023, completed bivalent booster) and not up-to-date (2022, incomplete primary series; 2023, no bivalent booster). We used a community-based participatory research approach, collaborating with 15 community-based organizations to develop research questions, interview protocols, and methods for data collection, and analysis. Thematic coding of interviews was conducted. Participants reported that work and travel-related incentives, including bonuses, maintaining employment, and being able to travel, were successful in supporting their decision to vaccinate. Financial incentives were mainly viewed negatively and as causes for suspicion and subsequently disincentivized some participants to take the vaccine. Our results indicate that financial incentives were a less effective way to drive uptake among the Black and Latinx Michiganders we interviewed. Understanding the potentially negative effects of vaccine financial incentives is essential to combat vaccine hesitancy. It is critical to ensure vaccine incentives align with community values and preferences and do not further damage trust in public health.

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