Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publication Title

Journal of American College Health

Keywords

affective associations, social barriers, trust, vaccination barriers, vaccination hesitancy

Abstract

Objective
Vaccination is crucial to college student health, but quantitative analyses of barriers in this population are limited. The present study expands the work of Su and Chen to determine the relative influence of structural, psychological, and social vaccination barriers.

Participants
Participants were 650 students from a large, midwestern university during the 2024 vaccination season.

Methods
Participants were recruited from a college campus and randomized to respond to items assessing their barriers to, intentions to receive, and uptake of the COVID-19 or influenza vaccination.

Results
Structural, psychological, and social barriers were differentially important to vaccinations and to intentions vs. uptake at time of collection. Results support Su and Chen’s findings that low perceived necessity, social influence, and convenience constraints are barriers; however vaccine fear and lack of knowledge did not predict examined outcomes.

Conclusions
This study provides seasonal vaccination evidence specific to the college student population that can guide messaging and intervention strategies to support vaccination behavior.

Funding Source

This work was supported by a University Research Grant from Illinois State University. This article was published open access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Taylor & Francis.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

DOI

10.1080/07448481.2026.2731254

Comments

First published in Journal of American College Health (2026): https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2026.2731254
 

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