Solveig Vederhus og Eirik Myhre (2024)
Cultural factors influencing COVID-19- related perceptions and behavior, seen from immigrants' own perspective
Main content
Submitted: 2024
Supervisors: professor Esperanza Diaz and associate professor Liv G. Kvalvik
Published in Archives of Public Health 82:110 (2024)
Abstract:
Cultural factors are often mentioned as a possible explanation for the observed differences between immigrant populations compared to general populations with regards to COVID-19 disease burden and vaccination rates, but usually without any further exploration of what this entails. This paper aims to capture the thoughts of immigrants themselves and explore how they think culture may or may not have affected vaccination rates and health behavior during the pandemi
They identified four main themes the participants thought could influence spread of infection and vaccine hesitancy: cultural factors, transcultural factors, host society factors, and other personal factors. Social habits, religious traditions, attitudes towards and trust in the healthcare system, sense of community and societal duty were understood as cultural factors that influenced health behavior and vaccination hesitancy. However, different cultural factors could have varied impact on immigrants’ behavior related to COVID-19 and possibly other health settings for different immigrant groups. In addition, we found examples of other factors related to being ‘between cultures’, and we found structural and socioeconomic factors not linked to culture.