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Study Takes Look at Decision Making in Getting a COVID-19 Vaccine

Published in the Pawtucket Times on January 25, 2021

Last month, the first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines came to Rhode Island. With limited stockpiles, debate in the state is heating up as to who gets priority in getting vaccinated. While many Rhode Islanders are waiting for the opportunity to be vaccinated, it has been reported that others, including health care workers, are declining to be inoculated. They turned down the chance to get the COVID-19 vaccine because of their concerns it may not be safe or effective.  Now research studies are being reported as how to increase a person’s likelihood to be vaccinated.

Last week, the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project Survey, a group whose mission is to increase public dialogue on vaccine education, released survey findings that ranked preferred locations to receive COVID-19 vaccines, as well as leading information sources that would influence a person’s decision to get vaccinated. 

The CARAVAN survey was conducted live on December 18-20, 2020 by ENGINE INSIGHTS, among a sample of 1,002 adults over the age of 18 who had previously volunteered to participate in online surveys and polls. The data was weighted to reflect the demographic composition of the population. 

The researchers found that nearly two-thirds of the public (63 percent) say they will “definitely” or “probably” get vaccinated against COVID-19. The numbers of those indicating they would “definitely” or “probably” get vaccinated varied widely by race. While 67 percent of white respondents indicated they would get a vaccine, the numbers fell to 58 percent among Hispanic respondents and only 42 percent among Black respondents. 

Influencing a Person’s Decision to Get a COVID-19 Vaccine 

This study, commissioned by the Washington, DC-based Alliance for Aging Research, one of the three nonprofit organizations leading the project, found the majority (51 percent) of respondents ranked their healthcare provider or pharmacist as one of the sources most likely to influence their decision to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents said they would prefer to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in their healthcare provider’s office. 

After healthcare providers and pharmacists, when asked to provide the top two additional sources of information about COVID-19 vaccines that would most influence their decision to get vaccinated, 32 percent of respondents cited nationally recognized health experts, and 30 percent named family and friends. However, older respondents were increasingly more likely (75 percent ages 65 and older) to trust their healthcare provider or pharmacist, followed by 43 percent (ages 65 and older) trusting nationally recognized health experts. 

“While we’re encouraged to see the majority of respondents planning to get vaccinated, we need to continue to educate about the safety of receiving COVID-19 vaccines from various healthcare professionals, including pharmacists in drug stores, supermarkets, and vaccine clinics,” said Susan Peschin, President and CEO of the Alliance for Aging Research, in a Jan. 14 statement released announcing the study’s findings.  “It is critical to our pursuit of health equity that all Americans have confidence in and access to COVID-19 vaccines,” she said. 

Overall, the researchers say that survey responses provided important information about the factors influencing the likelihood to get vaccinated and where respondents prefer to receive COVID-19 vaccinations. As to the likelihood to be vaccinated, the study’s findings reveal that about a quarter (24 percent) of respondents said they would “probably not” or “definitely not” get a vaccine, with Black respondents more likely to say they would not receive the vaccine (25 percent), compared to Hispanic (15 percent) and white (13 percent) respondents. Respondents that said they will “probably not” get a vaccine also tend to be younger (13 percent ages 18-34, 14 percent ages 35-44). 

Identifying Preferred Locations to be Vaccinated 

Researchers looked into what is the preferred location to be vaccinated. The survey asked respondents to select one or multiple locations where they would prefer to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The majority (64 percent) of respondents indicated they would prefer COVID-19 vaccination in their healthcare provider’s office, while 29 percent prefer a pharmacy, 20 percent a drive-thru vaccine clinic, and only 13 percent would like to receive the vaccine at a grocery store pharmacy. 

Researchers found a generational split among these options (health care providers office, pharmacy, drive-thru clinic and grocery store-based pharmacy). When asked about their top two considerations, older respondents were much more likely (72 percent ages 65 and older) to cite preference for receiving COVID-19 vaccines in their healthcare provider’s office, compared to over half (56 percent) of respondents ages 18-34.

More than a third (36 percent) of those ages 18-34 prefer to be vaccinated at a pharmacy. In evaluating location preferences, nearly two-thirds (61 percent) of respondents said they would prefer to get vaccinated from a healthcare provider they know. This percentage was higher when looking at respondents over the age of 65 (74 percent). Additional factors driving the location where respondents would like to receive the vaccine included the ability to get the vaccine quickly or not have to wait in line (45 percent) and a location close to home (41 percent), the study found. 

Debunking Some Myths and Misconceptions 

RIDOH has compiled a listing of frequency asked questions about COVID-19.  Here is a sampling: Some believe that vaccines are ineffective due to the vaccine’s fast track development, fearing corners have been cut during the clinical trials. The Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) stresses that “the vaccines are 95% effective in preventing symptomatic laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and in preventing severe disease.” 

It’s been reported that some people may choose to not get vaccinated because that believe that the vaccine contain a microchip.  That’s not true, says RIDOH. “There is no vaccine microchip, and the vaccine will not track people or gather personal information into a database. This myth started after comments made by Bill Gates from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about a digital certificate of vaccine records. The technology he was referencing is not a microchip, has not been implemented in any manner, and is not tied to the development, testing, or distribution of COVID-19 vaccines,” says RIDOH.  

Others express concerns that MRNA vaccines can alter your DNA.  “The COVID-19 vaccines currently available, which are messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, will not alter your DNA. Messenger RNA vaccines work by instructing cells in the body how to make a protein that triggers an immune response, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Messenger RNA injected into your body does not enter the cell nucleus where DNA is located and will not interact with or do anything to the DNA of your cells. Human cells break down and get rid of the messenger RNA soon after they have finished using the instructions,” states RIDOH.  

A vaccine will not give you COVID-19.  RIDOH says: “None of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in development or in use in the US contain the live virus that causes COVID-19. The goal for each of the vaccines is to teach our immune system how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. Sometimes this process can cause symptoms, such as fever. These symptoms are normal and are a sign that the body is building immunity. It typically takes a few weeks for the body to build immunity after vaccination. That means it’s possible a person could be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 just before or just after vaccination and get sick, but this is not because they got the vaccine. This is because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection.” 

For more resources on the impact of COVID-19 vaccination uptake in protecting individuals, families and communities, and for details on how organizations can partner with the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project, visit https://covidvaccineproject.org. Want to know more about COVID-19 Vaccinations?  Go to https://health.ri.gov/publications/frequentlyaskedquestions/COVID19-Vaccine.pdf. 

Increasing Your Odds of Living to 100 and Beyond

Published January 18, 2013, Pawtucket Times

Just barely holding onto the record for being the nation’s oldest person for about two weeks, Mamie Rearden, of Edgefield, a 114-year-old South Carolina woman, died on Jan. 2, just three weeks after a fall broke her hip. The amazing thing though, is for how long she was so healthy and living independently. According to recently published research, most people who reach the age of 110 years and beyond, only spend, on average the last 5 years of their incredibly long lives with age-related diseases.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the Gerontology Research Group, an organization verifying age information for the Guinness World Records, noted that Rearden’s Sept. 7, 1898, birth was recorded and therefore verified in the 1900 U.S. Census, making her the nation’s oldest living person after last month’s passing of 115-year-old Dina Manfredini of Iowa. Before Rearden died, she was more than a year younger than the world’s oldest person, 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura of Japan.

Rearden, married to her husband for 59 years until his death in 1979, raised 11 children, 10 of whom are alive. The former teacher and housewife first learned how to drive a car at age 65. At this time she worked for an Edgefield County program locating children whose parents were keeping them out of school, reported AP.

Studying the Nation’s Oldest Citizens

Dr. Thomas Perls, a geriatrician who heads the Boston University-based New England Centenarian Study (NECS), considers Rearden’s longevity to be a very rare occurrence. She was one of around 70 supercentenarians (people who have reached age 110) living in this country, he says.

Almost 20 years ago, when Perls’ longitudinal study began, about 1 per 10,000 people in the United States survived to age 100. However, he notes that they are now more common at a rate of 1 per 5,000.

“Now most people think that getting to your eighties is expected,” says Dr. Perls. Simply put, more Americans are now living longer today than in previous generations because the high childhood mortality rates in the early 1900s have been slashed due to hugely improved public health measures like clean water, vaccinations and a safe food supply combined with a more educated population and improved socioeconomic conditions, he noted.

Meanwhile, vaccinations for older people, effective antibiotics and medications for what have become chronic rather than acute lethal diseases, as well as curative surgeries are now markedly improving middle-age people’s chances of living to even older ages, adds Dr. Perls.

Finding the Secrets of Longevity

Dr. Perls says his passion for working with the nation’s oldest began when at 16 years old he worked as an orderly in a nursing home. In 1986, he received his medical degree from the University of Rochester, later a Masters from the Harvard School of Public Health. His specialization in geriatrics ultimately would propel him into a life-long interest in finding the secrets as to why people successfully age well and live for more than a century.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Perls later moved to Colorado and is now residing in Boston. A professor at Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Perls, board certified in internal medicine and geriatric medicine, has coauthored a book for the lay public, entitled, Living to 100, co-edited an academic book, and penned 106 juried articles. He is the author of the online Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator. It uses the most current and carefully research medical and scientific data to estimate how old you will live to be (www.livingto100.com) and provides some general advice according to your answers to about 40 questions that take about 7 minutes to complete.

Initially at Harvard University, the NECS later relocated to Boston University School of Medicine, giving his longevity initiative “room to grow,” says Perls, who is NECS’s founding director. Today this demographic initiative, now considered to be the world’s largest study of centenarians and supercentenarians, is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), private foundations and “cherished” individual donors, he says. Study participants and their families fill out health and family history questionnaires, and provide a blood sample for studying their genes.

Along with the NECS, Dr. Perls also directs the Boston-based study center of the multi-center and international Long Life Family Study (LLFS) which is a study of families that have multiple members living to extreme old age. Both initiatives are enabling researchers to find out how and why centenarians and their children, who are in their seventies and eighties, live the vast majority of their lives disability-free.

As to those who participate in his NECS and LLFS initiatives, the youngest is about 45 years old (a very young child of a centenarian) and the oldest ever enrolled was 119 years old, the second oldest person in the world, ever, states Perls. Since he begun the NECS, out of 2,200 participants, 1,200 were age 100 and over, he added. The remaining participants were children of centenarians or in the study’s control group. “Because of their ages, most of these folks have now passed away,” he said, adding that at any one time about 10% of the total centenarians in the study are alive.

Unraveling the Data

During his long career studying centenarians, the research findings indicate that it is common for centenarians to have brothers and sisters who also live to be very old. “Exceptional longevity runs strong in families,” he notes.

Dr. Perls’ research also debunked long-held beliefs that the longer you live, the sicker you get. But even if centenarians were afflicted by multiple age-related diseases in their nineties, on average 90 percent functioned independently at the average age of 93 years, he says. Centenarians living to age 100 were found to have avoided age-related disabilities as well as diseases until, on average, their last 5 years.

While a healthy life style is definitely important to living into ones’ eighties with much of that time spent in good health, Dr. Perls states that having the right genes becomes more and more crucial for living to a much older age.

Research indicates that living to your mid-eighties is 70-80% environmental and habits and 30-20% genes. Seventh Day Adventists were found to have the longest average life expectancy in the United States, that is 88 years. Most of that longevity was likely due to their healthy habits which include being vegetarian, regularly exercising, not smoking or drinking alcohol and also doing things that decrease the effect of stress.

However, many Americans do just the opposite, with unhealthy diets, not exercising and still, many people smoke, notes Dr. Perls. So it is not surprising that on average, Americans die 8-10 years earlier than Seventh Day Adventists, at the average age of about 80 years. (According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in 2010, the U.S. life expectancy was 75 years for males and 80 years for females.)

“We should take advantage of our genes and not fight them,” Perls says, by adopting healthier lifestyles.

Perls believes that DNA research on very old people should for now not focus on identifying genes that predict diseases. Rather the findings in the near future might just offer clues to how some genes slow the aging process and protect people from age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart attacks. Such discoveries could lead to the development of drugs that protect against multiple chronic diseases.

A Final Note…

Make working to create a healthier life style a top priority on your New Year’s resolution list. This effort might just ratchet up your life expectancy into the mid-eighties and if you have longevity in your family, even longer. Why not stop smoking, and watch your drinking, too. Even make exercise, weight training and keeping your mind active as part of your daily routine. Combine these lifestyle changes with better eating habits, meditating or yoga, or even doing low impact exercises like tai chi, and you’re on your way to increased longevity.

Ultimately, a healthier life style along with good genes may well help you increase the odds of living to 100 and beyond.

If you know anyone who is 105 years old or older, please mention the New England Centenarian Study to them and/or their family. The Study can be reached at (888) 333-6327 or you can go online http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian for more information.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.