Religion to the rescue: How appeals to faith can inspire people to get COVID vaccination

Here we go again. Mask mandates. Tracking case counts. Wondering about whether schools will be open. Worrying about whether a stray sniffle is COVID-19 or a cold.

It was supposed to be over by now. And yet here we are.

But there is a ray of light in the doomsday sky. 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.

USA TODAY's opinion newsletter: Get the best insights and analysis delivered to your inbox.

The uptick in the acceptance rate has been particularly pronounced among religious groups who were lagging others in March. Acceptance is up not only among Democratic-leaning groups like Hispanic Catholics and African American Protestants, but also among Republican-leaning groups like Latino Protestants, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and even among white evangelical Protestants.

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.

Among key subgroups with significant numbers who remain hesitant, faith-based approaches also show promise. More than 4 in 10 Hispanic Protestants (44%) and nearly 3 in 10 (28%) white evangelical Protestants who are vaccine hesitant say faith-based approaches would make them more likely to get vaccinated.

Notably, even among white evangelicals who are vaccine refusers, more than 1 in 10 (13%) report that faith-based approaches would make them more likely to get vaccinated.

Reports from the field corroborate the quantitative research. People feel encouraged when their pastor says getting vaccinated is a way of protecting human life or loving your neighbor.

People feel safer in houses of worship

They feel safer getting vaccinated in a familiar place, like their church or mosque. Those who need transportation to a vaccination clinic would prefer a church van to a stranger’s Uber. And parents are comfortable with a familiar institution providing child care for their kids or grandkids.

In this push against the delta variant of COVID-19, these faith-based interventions are a critical part of the path to herd immunity. But organizations providing these services, many of whom paid for an initial round of programs out of their own pockets, will need resources to do this. Stipends for community health workers. Funding to host vaccine clinics. Dollars to pay the people who drive the vans and watch the kids.

Philanthropy stepped up in a big way in the first half of 2021. Foundations who typically did not work in public health stood up special one-time funding initiatives to resource persuasion campaigns and vaccine clinics.

The good news from our surveys: It is working. But with the more infectious delta variant tearing through unvaccinated populations, and as life moves indoors, we now see that fall and winter are sure to bring new waves of disease. And we do not know how school reopenings and the rollout of children’s vaccines will go.

Race against pandemic isn't over

Marathon runners often talk about “hitting the wall,” a phenomenon that often hits around mile 20 of 26. Your shoes suddenly feel like they are made of iron, and your mind begins to wonder whether the end will ever come. It is the point at which the race is mostly likely to be abandoned, even by runners who have put in the training time.

The key, athletes say, is to push through until the body adjusts.

Even if we are not runners, this example probably feels familiar regarding COVID-19. Despite our collective exhaustion, we must find the resources to continue the race.

The variants haven’t won yet. But nor have we. The good news is that if we match the resources with what we already know how to do, we can get across the finish line.

Robert P. Jones is founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, which has fielded two waves of the Religion and the Vaccine Survey, each consisting of more than  5,000 interviews. Eboo Patel is founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core, which has launched a research-based training and mobilization program of nearly 2,000 “faith in the vaccine ambassadors.”