Religious Service Attendance, COVID-19 Vaccine Attitudes, and COVID-19 Vaccination Status: A Vaccine Safety Datalink...

The intersections of religion and vaccination became visible early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, initial pandemic data reporting associations between religiosity and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is nearly 5 years old and has methodologic limitations. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between religious service attendance, COVID-19 attitudes, and COVID-19 vaccination at the midpoint of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

A survey of Vaccine Safety Datalink members, purposefully sampled by race, ethnicity, language, and pregnancy status (N=2,856), was administered from November 2022 through February 2023. Data were analyzed through weighting and multivariable logistic regression.

Overall, 960 people (33%) responded; 22.8% (95% CI=15.2%, 30.3%) identified as Catholic, and 21.7% (95% CI=14.6%, 28.9%) identified as just Christian. Overall, 28.1% (95% CI=19.4%, 36.8%) reported never attending services, whereas 19.0% (95% CI=12.3%, 25.7%) attended weekly or more often. Compared with never attending services, religious service attendance weekly or more often was associated with increasing bivalent COVID-19 Omicron booster vaccine hesitancy (p<0.01) and decreasing trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for COVID-19 or COVID-19 vaccine information (p=0.033). Self-reported COVID-19 vaccination ever (AOR=0.65; 95% CI=0.23, 1.84) or any bivalent COVID-19 Omicron booster vaccination (AOR=0.36; 95% CI=0.06, 2.20) were not associated with religious service attendance weekly or more often, compared with never attending services.

Observed associations between religious service attendance, vaccine attitudes, and trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourage meaningfully redefining public health and faith community partnerships oriented toward COVID-19-related education and disease prevention.