On January 20, 2020, the CDC reported its first case of the novel coronavirus in the United States. Almost a year and a half later, efforts to vaccinate individuals in the hopes of achieving herd immunity continue. Despite the amounts of scientific breakthroughs to create and disseminate the vaccines, people continue to express hesitancy. Existing research has explored vaccine hesitancy through survey data, restricting an in-depth understanding for why people remain hesitant. As a result, this research aimed to understand in-depth reasons for vaccine hesitancy as well as what finally got those who, although hesitant, went through with getting inoculated. In addition, we also wanted to know how the vaccine hesitant received information about the vaccine. Using in-depth interviews, we identified key elements that influenced vaccine hesitancy which include social pressure to not get vaccinated and lack of trust in the healthcare system. We also identified reasons why vaccine hesitant individuals ultimately decided to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. These reasons included becoming informed, getting back to normal, and societal pressure. Finally, we sought to understand what served as venues for COVID-19 information and those were media sources like traditional news outlets/legacy media (e.g., TV) and digital/social media, and interpersonal sources like family, friends, and co-workers. In revealing these factors through in-depth interviews, we show how complex vaccine hesitancy is and the elements public health practitioners need to take into consideration when constructing vaccine-related information/messages.

Among U.S. college students, alcohol abuse, including binge-drinking, is an increasingly serious and pervasive problem. Student alcohol abuse can lead to societal and individual impacts, including "increasing rates of driving under the influence, unintentional injuries, and deaths, and a host of other social, psychological, and physiological problems". Discovering particular characteristics and patterns of communication during the college/university life stage may assist the design of more effective health promotion campaigns aimed at alcohol abuse prevention/cessation.Unfortunately, to date, interventions aimed at changing student behaviors and environmental facilitators have had limited success. In particular, little research has focused on understanding the nature of appeals targeting Hispanic/Latino students (e.g.). Such interventions may benefit from additional focus on increasing college students' social support reliance and/or on boosting their perceptions of self-efficacy and from further identification of specific appeals resonating with Hispanic/Latino students. The present study investigates students' ABOUT THE AUTHORThe research group behind this study focuses on science and health communication to the public and the applications of such communication to educational initiatives and health promotion campaigns. To date, their research has focused primarily on underserved populations, including senior adults and Hispanic/Latino groups in the Southwest United States. At various points in time, all the authors have been affiliated with the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, designated by the federal government as a Hispanic-serving institution. The current study falls squarely within this focus.

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This study examined how shared family identity and COVID-19 worry were associated with choices to adapt family gatherings during the pandemic. Participants (N = 314) reflected on a conversation with a family member outside their household regarding whether/how to hold a gathering. Results showed that higher COVID-19 worry predicted higher likelihood of making adaptations to gatherings by either taking COVID-19 precautions while gathering in person or calling off the in-person gathering. However, higher shared family identity was associated with lower likelihood of calling off the gathering and higher probabilities of gathering in person with or without precautions. When people felt a high sense of shared family identity with a family member who disagreed with them, the decisions regarding adapting the family gathering did not necessarily reflect their own levels of COVID-19 worry. In qualitative analyses of open-ended responses regarding family discussions about whether to gather, participants wished for family members to express more openness, respect and understanding, and behavioral intentions that aligned with their own views on COVID-19. How shared family identity affects choices about health interventions and the way family members prefer to communicatively manage disagreements are discussed in the framework of social identity theory and communication accommodation theory.