SACRAMENTO, Calif — COVID-19 vaccination rates in rural adults trailed urban rates by several percentage points nationwide and in California during the first four months of the rollout, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The gap may be growing even wider in California in recent weeks as the shots become more widely available, state data show.
About 44% of California adults living in rural counties had received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by April 10, compared with 50% of the state’s adults in urban counties, according to a CDC report released Tuesday. The U.S. rates were 46% for urban adults and 39% for rural adults.
Rural residents were also more likely to have traveled outside of their county to get a vaccine dose.
“This was true for counties across the country, across all age groups, and among men and women,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters.
The data also showed that women were taking the vaccine at higher rates than men, both in rural and in urban areas.
A Sacramento Bee review of more recent data from the state, using the same definitions for urban and rural counties as the CDC, found that the discrepancy may have roughly doubled since the April 10 end date in that report, which was five days before California expanded eligibility to residents 16 and older.
While the percentage of residents with at least partial vaccination has increased by seven points in rural counties since April 10, the urban rate has shot up by 13 points.
The Bee used data and adult population estimates from the California Department of Public Health showing 51% of adults across the state’s 21 rural counties had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine through this past Sunday, compared to 63% in the state’s urban counties, a 12-point gap.
The CDC defines “rural” counties according to classifications by the National Center for Health Statistics, which lists 21 of California’s 58 counties as rural, leaving the remaining 37 as urban.
“Vaccine hesitancy in rural areas is a major barrier that public health practitioners, health care providers, and local partners need to address to achieve vaccination equity,” authors of Tuesday’s CDC report wrote. “Disparities in COVID-19 vaccination between urban and rural communities can hinder progress toward ending the pandemic.”
California public health officials have in recent months doubled down on efforts to mitigate so-called vaccine hesitancy in regions and neighborhoods with lower vaccination rates.
Nearly one in five Californians surveyed for an April Public Policy Institute of California poll said they would either wait a year to get the vaccine or wouldn’t ever get vaccinated.
African Americans were the most likely racial group to hesitate getting the vaccine, the survey found. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 24% of no party preference voters also said they would wait or never get vaccinated, compared with 7% of Democrats.
The California Department of Public Health has attempted to build trust in marginalized communities of color by running ads that answer general questions about the COVID-19 vaccine.
The state agency has also collaborated with local firefighters and other first responders to reach vaccine-hesitant Californians more receptive to that form of public service messaging.
California’s 21 rural counties are Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Inyo, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity and Tuolumne.
The lowest adult vaccination rate in California is in Lassen County, home to about 30,000 total residents, where only 26% have gotten a first dose, according to CDPH.
Only three of 21 rural counties have reached a 60% rate in adults, compared to 18 of 37 urban counties, including San Diego (79%), San Francisco (78%) and Los Angeles (63%). In Sacramento County, 58% of adults have been vaccinated.
The CDC report notes that its calculations omitted data from eight California counties with fewer than 20,000 residents: Alpine, Inyo, Mariposa, Modoc, Mono, Plumas, Sierra and Trinity.
The Bee’s analysis reviewed state data from those eight counties and found that about 51% of adults have had a COVID-19 vaccine, the same rate as the other 13 rural counties.
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(Michael Wilner of the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed to this report.)
