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The effort to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19 has slowed to a worrying pace. Hopes raised by the initial enthusiastic uptake of COVID vaccines have been tempered by increasing difficulties in reaching the roughly one-quarter of American adults that have not yet received a vaccine. As case rates remain high and increasingly worrying variants circulate, continued low confidence and enduring barriers to vaccination represent major obstacles to ending the public health crisis. 

Increasing vaccination rates among young adults has been a particular challenge. The latest data from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor shows that respondents ages 18-29 have the lowest vaccination rates of any age group. They are also most likely to express hesitancy or outright refusal to get the vaccine. The most recent polling data from the Census suggests that more than half of 18-34-year-olds who are not currently vaccinated say they will probably or definitely not get the vaccine. Furthermore, disparities in vaccination rates and hesitancy across racial and socioeconomic lines are as acute among young adults as they are among the population at large. 

In order to better understand the core attitudinal determinants of vaccine hesitancy among this crucial population, Young Invincibles convened a series of listening sessions between April and June of 2021. Respondents were asked to take a short pre-survey, and then to participate in an hour-long structured discussion around their personal experiences with and attitudes towards the contemporaneously-available COVID vaccines.