Abstract
With the current COVID-19 pandemic climate, the number of racial disparities has only been exacerbated for people of color within marginalized communities. How the news media frames information surrounding racial disparities and healthcare is crucial for public awareness and future legislation. This study analyzed 41 news media articles from USA Today from December 2020 to September 2021. I used a purposive, convenience sampling approach to collect and analyze data. Through this content analysis the main themes were: (1) Access, (2) Eligibility, (3) Hesitancy, (4) Distrust/Fear, (5) Socioeconomic Status (6) Community Engagement, and (7) Lack of Data or Misinformation. To summarize numerically, among the 41 news articles analyzed, Access was mentioned 28 times, Hesitancy was mentioned 19 times, Distrust/Fear was mentioned 15 times, Socioeconomic Status was mentioned 13 times, Eligibility was mentioned 11 times, Community Engagement was mentioned 8 times, and Lack of Data or Misinformation was mentioned 3 times. The findings within these articles demonstrate how racism is perpetuated within U.S. society relative to the healthcare system. Out of the 41 articles, 30 of them discussed race within their framing on COVID-19 vaccines and health disparities. Media framed lack of vaccinations among people of color in comparison to high rates of vaccination among White people, which highlights the racial inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and which also, perhaps, shows some progress being made by mainstream media to take a critical race lens with respect to varying healthcare experiences. Limited data impacts my research generalizability, validity, and reliability; however, the data present avenues for future scholarly research. It is necessary to continue analyzing news media information in order to assess prevailing narratives that frame discourse on COVID-19 vaccines and healthcare disparities more broadly, which has the potential to provide public awareness and policy recommendations for social change.