Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake. The results indicate higher group and individual closure levels are positively related to having unvaccinated children and vaccine hesitancy. Perceptions of vaccine effectiveness partially explain these associations. Healthcare providers should consider constructing culturally competent programs to reach closed communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• vaccines
• closed religious communities
• Amish

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There is variation among the Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in the extent to which they vaccinate and abide by public health mandates in general and regarding COVID-19 specifically.

2. Data was used with permission from the New Leaf Team.

3. The researchers distributed surveys to people in the Ohio-Indiana Wisler Old Order Conference and the Groffdale Old Order Mennonite groups. These groups are located in Wayne, Ashland, and Richland counties. Unfortunately, the survey did not collect data on Mennonite affiliations. Thus, we can only indicate that the Mennonites in our sample are Old Order. While combining groups with different theologies may mask important differences, there were insufficient numbers of Old Order Mennonites in the sample to analyze those differences. Exploring complexities across groups would be a fruitful avenue for future research.

4. Amish and Old Order Mennonites refer to children with genetic diseases as “special needs” or “special children”.

5. Home visit practices were evident during field work observations by authors at the New Leaf Clinic in June and July 2019.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel E. Stein

Rachel E. Stein (PhD, University of Akron, 2008) is an associate professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on community building and health in Old Order Amish communities. Her current work explores how the Amish and Mennonite communities are experiencing the ongoing pandemic, how preventive health care decisions vary across Amish affiliations, how reproductive choices impact maternal health, and how visiting practices strengthen the Amish community and contribute to its growth.

Katie E. Corcoran

Katie E. Corcoran (PhD, University of Washington, 2012), is an associate professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. Her research cuts across many subareas including congregational dynamics, religion and health, religion and civic engagement, religious emotion, religious knowledge, and religion and crime. She recently published the book High on God: How Megachurches Won The Heart of America (Oxford University Press, 2020, with James K. Wellman Jr. and Kate Stockly), which explores the emotional dynamics of megachurches in the U.S. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the International Research Network for the Study of Belief and Science.

Corey J. Colyer

Corey J. Colyer (PhD, Syracuse University, 2005) is an associate professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. His research concentrates on cultural processes and structural mechanisms of social institutions. Theoretically, he draws heavily on the notion of negotiated orders. Human action takes place within groups (of varying sizes and shapes), which structures and constrains it. Institutionally mediated ideas pass through network chains, and ideas require institutions inhabited by people to resonate and persist. This framework is broadly applicable to criminal justice processes, social control decision making, and worldview or sensemaking practices (which includes religion).

Bernard D. DiGregorio

Bernard D. DiGregorio (MA, West Virginia University, 2020) is a graduate student at West Virginia University. His research interests are focused broadly around religion, crime/deviance, and health/mental health. He has a particular interest in how religion influences views toward crime, deviance, and punishment, as well as the roles and applications of religion in navigating major life events.