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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">BMANA</journal-id>
      <journal-id journal-id-type="nlm-ta">Journal of BMANA</journal-id>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Journal of BMANA</journal-title>
        <abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="pubmed">Journal of BMANA</abbrev-journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
      <issn pub-type="ppub">2231-2196</issn>
      <issn pub-type="opub">0975-5241</issn>
      <publisher>
        <publisher-name/>
      </publisher>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">109</article-id>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi"/>
      <article-id pub-id-type="doi-url"/>
      <article-categories>
        <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
          <subject>Medical Association</subject>
        </subj-group>
      </article-categories>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Pilot Study on Predictors of Vaccine Hesitancy among Muslim-Americans: The Roles of Trust, Religiosity, and Political Beliefs&#13;
</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group/>
      <pub-date pub-type="ppub">
        <day>30</day>
        <month>06</month>
        <year>2026</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>4</volume>
      <issue>1</issue>
      <fpage>1</fpage>
      <lpage>14</lpage>
      <permissions>
        <copyright-statement>This article is copyright of Popeye Publishing, 2009</copyright-statement>
        <copyright-year>2009</copyright-year>
        <license license-type="open-access" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
          <license-p>This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) Licence. You may share and adapt the material, but must give appropriate credit to the source, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made.</license-p>
        </license>
      </permissions>
      <abstract>
        <p>Background: Vaccine hesitancy hinders the management of preventable illnesses. Currently, there are gaps in public health research on vaccine hesitancy among Muslim-Americans. There are few studies that examine Muslim-Americans in multi-faith countries, like the U.S. and Canada.&#13;
&#13;
Objective: We aimed to understand the extent of vaccine hesitancy among Muslim-Americans, as well as what factors contributed to their health care decision making for vaccines.&#13;
&#13;
Method: Participants were recruited through Facebook group posts. Seventy-three participants completed the online Qualtrics survey. Sixty-five participants met the inclusion criteria of living in the United States for at least five years, be eighteen years of age and identify as Muslim. Participants’ responses were collapsed into the following belief scores to quantify subjective opinions from the survey: political leaning, religiosity, trust in public institutions, and vaccine hesitancy.&#13;
&#13;
Results: 71.4% were female, with an average age of 32 years. 80.6% were Asian, 9.7% were white or Caucasian, 3.2% were Middle Eastern, 3.2% were mixed race, and 1.6% were Black or African American. 51.6% attained a graduate or doctoral degree. 79.0% identified as Sunni, 9.7% were Shia, 6.5% were Sufi, and 4.8% did not associate with a sect. 96.8% received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Participants who were older in age, had attained higher levels of education, employed, unmarried, and identified with the Sunni sect were less vaccine hesitant. Most participants (36.5%) were more likely to accept a vaccine if it had no reported safety issues. Participants were more likely to be hesitant about vaccines with safety concerns or poor efficacy.&#13;
&#13;
Conclusions: Results both align with and contradict previous studies conducted in Muslim majority and multi-faith countries. This study found an association between Islamic sect and attitudes towards vaccines. While this is a unique finding, it is exploratory. Follow up studies are necessary to gauge a larger, more diverse population of MuslimAmericans. Based on this study’s findings, healthcare professionals can better promote vaccines by alleviating their patient’s trust in public institutions. Clinicians must understand their Muslim patients’ fears about vaccination and address misconceptions. Public health institutions must engage in culturally relevant community-level advocacy and education. Mistrust by Muslim-Americans stems from a history of systemic discrimination, Islamophobia, and socioeconomic barriers to adequate healthcare. Thus, solutions must emphasize improving healthcare access for Muslim-Americans and helping them feel reassured about the healthcare system at large. We suggest incorporating translation services for better communication. We recommend that clinicians emphasize positive attributes of vaccines that align with accepted beliefs within Islam, such as protecting the community.&#13;
</p>
      </abstract>
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    </article-meta>
  </front>
</article>
