Monitoring sociodemographic inequality in COVID-19 vaccination uptake in England: a national linked data study
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Abstract
The UK began an ambitious COVID-19 vaccination programme on 8 December 2020. This study describes variation in vaccination uptake by sociodemographic characteristics between December 2020 and August 2021.
Methods
Using population-level administrative records linked to the 2011 Census, we estimated monthly first dose vaccination rates by age group and sociodemographic characteristics among adults aged 18 years or over in England. We also present a tool to display the results interactively.
Results
Our sample included 35 223 466 adults. A lower percentage of males than females were vaccinated in the young and middle age groups (18–59 years) but not in the older age groups. Vaccination rates were highest among individuals of White British and Indian ethnic backgrounds and lowest among Black Africans (aged ≥80 years) and Black Caribbeans (18–79 years). Differences by ethnic group emerged as soon as vaccination roll-out commenced and widened over time. Vaccination rates were also lower among individuals who identified as Muslim, lived in more deprived areas, reported having a disability, did not speak English as their main language, lived in rented housing, belonged to a lower socioeconomic group, and had fewer qualifications.
Conclusion
We found inequalities in COVID-19 vaccination uptake rates by sex, ethnicity, religion, area deprivation, disability status, English language proficiency, socioeconomic position and educational attainment, but some of these differences varied by age group. Research is urgently needed to understand why these inequalities exist and how they can be addressed.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.07.21264681: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Strengths and limitations: A major strength of this study is the use of nationwide linked population-level data from clinical records and the 2011 Census. Unlike studies based solely on electronic health records, we were able to examine a wide range of …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.07.21264681: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Strengths and limitations: A major strength of this study is the use of nationwide linked population-level data from clinical records and the 2011 Census. Unlike studies based solely on electronic health records, we were able to examine a wide range of sociodemographic characteristics; and unlike surveys, we were able to precisely estimate vaccination rates for small groups. Unlike previous research that has focused on initial months of the vaccination programme in England and is therefore limited to certain groups such as older adults and the clinically vulnerable, our data spans the entire vaccination programme between December 2020 and August 2021 and is therefore more representative of the whole adult population. This also enabled us to examine vaccination rates by age group in addition to other sociodemographic characteristics. Another strength of this study is the publication of up-to-date vaccination rates broken down by sociodemographic characteristics on the COVID-19 Health Inequalities Monitoring for England (CHIME) tool. The tool provides the opportunity for users to monitor inequalities in vaccination rates over time, as it will be updated with new data every month. This paper presents the data used in this new tool, which is a key part of the surveillance system designed to help the COVID-19 policy response. A limitation of this study is that most of the demographic and socio-economic characteristics were derived from the 2011 Census and are therefore 10 years ol...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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