Effects of Health Beliefs on Flu Vaccination and Physical Health among Under/Graduate Students in the U.S.: Racial Differences (Whites, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians)

ABSTRACT

Physicians highlight that annual flu vaccination is the best strategy for preventing seasonal flu and flu-associated complications and it reduces the burden of infectious diseases. Path analyses were used to understand whether health beliefs (barriers, benefits, susceptibility, severity) influence flu vaccinations, in turn, enhance self-rated health of White, African American, Hispanic, and Asian adults in the U.S. (N = 446). Multiple-group analyses were performed to see whether given paths vary across the four groups. Regardless of race, perceived barriers and benefits significantly influenced flu vaccination. There was a group variance in the path-model of the perceived barriers, flu vaccination, and self-rated health. Although the direct effect of perceived barriers on flu vaccination was shown for all racial groups, the direct effect of perceived barriers on self-rated health was shown only for Asians. Social workers and healthcare providers should be educated to appropriately interpret different meanings of health beliefs of diverse racial groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Health beliefs
• flu vaccination
• self-rated physical health
• racial differences

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availablity

Utilized data were drawn from the survey and the data are under deposition status.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Internal Grant, entitled “Interdisciplinary Research Seed Grant„ of the College of Education, Health and Society in Miami University (Oxford, Ohio, USA).