Our recent PRRI/IFYC Religion and the Vaccine Survey found clear progress in vaccine uptake, even among many hesitant groups, between the first wave of the survey in March and the second wave in June. Vaccine acceptance is up (from 58% to 71%), and vaccine hesitancy has been cut in half (from 28% to 15%). Today, only 13% are vaccine refusers.
Notably, of 11 groups that had the highest proportion of adherents who were either vaccine hesitant or refusers, five were religious. Today, each of these groups is majority vaccine acceptant.
It turns out that religious appeals and faith-based interventions have proved particularly effective at converting the hesitant and facilitating vaccination among many of the persuaded.
Among Americans who are vaccinated and regularly attend religious services, about one-third (32%) report that faith-based interventions made them more likely to get vaccinated. Vaccinated Hispanic Protestants (54%) and Black Protestants (42%) who regularly attend religious services were particularly likely to say that faith-based interventions helped persuade them to roll up their sleeves.
