The Mistrust of African-Americans on COVID-19 Vaccination

Methods

The success of research is dependent on the method applied in data collection and analysis (Opoku et al., 2016). The choice of this study’s research questions is guided by the hypothetical questions and the research questions. This section explains the quantitative data analysis method used, the participants, and the procedure followed during the process. The study will apply a quantitative method where the data will be collected from the participants through the questionnaires.

Research Question and Hypothesis

Akhtar (2016) explains various guidelines to be used by researchers while doing exploratory, experimental or descriptive analysis. The first step in exploratory and descriptive research is the formulation of relevant hypotheses. The hypotheses should then be tested whether they are true or not. The research question in this study seeks to determine whether the mistrust of African-Americans on COVID-19 vaccination was motivated by the Tuskegee Syphilis test. The variables to be tested will, therefore, be derived from the hypothesis and defined as follows:

1. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment had a prolonged impact on African-Americans desire to participate in the vaccination process.
2. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment did not impact the decision of African Americans to be vaccinated against COVID-19 trials.
3. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment impacted the decision by African-Americans to participate in the COVID-19 vaccination process.
4. Other factors (disparity and discrimination) contributed to African-Americans negative mentality on vaccination participation.

Participants

The research targets the population of all African-Americans living in the states of Florida, Texas, New York, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina. They are selected since they are among the states in the U.S.A with the highest population of African-Americans. According to Allen (2017), a researcher has the choice to select whether to do a research on a broad or a narrow population. Since the population may be costly and time-consuming, Allen (2017) advises researchers to choose a sample from the population. The study will employ simple random sampling where the list of the chosen states (the population) will be created, and each state have an equal probability of being selected as a sample. Although Taherdoost (2016) found that simple random sampling has high standard errors, the study assumes that minimum error will exist after selecting the state of Alabama as a representative sample. The participants from the sample (Alabama) will have to meet the following criteria.

1. They have to be of African-American descent.
2. They also need to be from different age groups, and both genders have equal chances to participate in the research.
3. Minors will not be included in the research, and the minimum age of the participants will be set to be eighteen years old.

The Procedure of Data Collection

Muhammad and Kabir (2016) define data collection as the process of gathering and measuring data on test variables to answer research questions, test hypotheses and analyze the results. The study will use quantitative data since it is a cheaper method to implement when testing a hypothesis. A survey approach will be applied where the research questionnaires will be distributed through social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp to the African-Americans living in Alabama. Social media platforms will be selected since, in the digital age, they have proven to be efficient and cost-friendly since most of the participants are connected to internet services.

Ethical Consideration and Informed Consent

Ethical consideration in research is critical to ensuring successful and safe data collection for both investigators and participants. There are several types of harm that can meet the participants, including Psychological, financial and social harm (Broesch et al., 2020). An ethical study, therefore, prevents any harm that can affect its participants. The college Institutional Review Board will assess the ethical perspectives of this study. The research will include informed consent, where the investigators will thoroughly explain the meaning and purpose of the study. The participants will then accept voluntarily to contribute to the process. The investigators will also inform the participants that they are free to exit the research at any stage. Since the participants’ data confidentiality is vital to consider (Chesser et al, 2020), the participants will be assured that their data will be used for the research only and will not be disposed to third parties.

Instrumentation

The research will use questionnaires, developed in three stages. The first stage will be drafting the questionnaire, then sending it to the institution Review Board (IRB) for approval and finally creating the final draft. The questions will be answered by the participants on a five-point Likert scale where one (1) represents strongly disagree, two (2) disagree, three (3) neither agree nor disagree, four (4) agree, and five (5) strongly agree.

The questionnaire will be framed to include questions addressing the variables of the research. The participant will be prompted first to fill the first section, which includes demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and residence state. Finally, the study will included a section that will state the rights and privileges of the participants contributing to the research. The questionnaire will then be included in an online survey system, and the link will be availed to the participants through social media.

Variables and Data Analysis

The research variables will be derived from each hypothesis, and they will be added to the research questionnaires. Each hypothesis has independent and dependent variables. For the first hypothesis, the study will test whether it is true using two variables stated below.

• Variable 1: The participant is ready to participate in a vaccination process
• Variable 2: The participant is haunted by the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

  • For the second hypothesis, the relationship between the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment and Covid-19 will be tested using the two variables below.
• Variable 3: There was high Covid-19 Vaccination hesitance among the participants.
• Variable 4: The high Covid-19 vaccination hesitance was caused by the memories of Tuskegee, Syphilis test

  • The following variables will be applied to test the truth of the third hypothesis.
• Variable 5: Older people are discouraged by the Tuskegee Syphilis test to take vaccines than younger people (African-Americans)
• Variable 6: Men are more impacted by the Tuskegee Syphilis test memories than Women

  • The final hypothesis will be used to test how other factors, including discrimination and disparity in health care, impacts the African-Americans’ decision to participate in the vaccination process. The following variables will be used to test it.
• Variable 7: Discrimination and disparity in health care in the United States contributed to high vaccine hesitance

  • After the data will be collected, analysis will follow using the IBM SPSS software. The analysis will include simple descriptive statistics where the mean, frequencies and bar charts of the demographic characteristics will be first computed. The study will then calculate the Pearson correlation factors and determine the significance of the data by comparing the p-value to a significance level of 0.05. Spearman correlation coefficients will then be computed to evaluate the monotonic relationship between the variables.

Limitation of the Study

The main challenge the study will face will be convincing the African-Americans population to participate. The mode of communication will be social media platforms, therefore, the research might take more time to gather considerable data for analysis. However, the investigators will apply persuasive approach, including awarding some participants to encourage them to participate. The success of the data collection will be measured by high number of participants. Therefore the study requires resources to reach the participants including the internet connection.

References

Akhtar, M. I. (2016). Research Design. Research in Social Science: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 68(1). Web.

Allen, M. (Ed.). (2017). The SAGE encyclopedia of communication research methods. Sage Publications. 4(35). Web.

Broesch, T., Crittenden, A. N., Beheim, B. A., Blackwell, A. D., Bunce, J. A., Colleran, H., Hagel K, Kline M, Mcelreath R & Mulder, M. B. (2020). Navigating cross-cultural research: methodological and ethical considerations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287(1935), 20201245. Web.

Chesser, S., Porter, M. M., & Tuckett, A. G. (2020). Cultivating citizen science for all: ethical considerations for research projects involving diverse and marginalized populations. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 23(5), 497-508. Web.

Muhammad, S., & Kabir, S. (2016). Methods of data collection: Basic Guidelines for Research: An Introductory Approach for All Disciplines: Methods of Data Collection (1^st ed., pp., 201-275). Web.

Opoku, A., Ahmed, V., & Akotia, J. (2016). Choosing an appropriate research methodology and method. In Research Methodology in the Built Environment (pp. 52-70). Routledge. Web.

Taherdoost, H. (2016). Sampling methods in research methodology; how to choose a sampling technique for research. How to Choose a Sampling Technique for Research. Web.