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Vaccination rates among Utah counties correlate to income, population density

Posted at 7:40 PM, Jul 06, 2021
and last updated 2021-07-07 11:28:51-04

SALT LAKE CITY — Summit County has 78% of it's residents over 12 years old fully vaccinated, while its neighbors in Duchesne, Daggett, and Uintah Counties are vaccinated at one-third of this rate.

What's behind these differences?

This map shows the percentage of fully vaccinated people age 12+ for each of Utah's 13 health districts:

FOX 13 looked at three potential factors: age, population density, and per-capita income in each health district to see how they match up to the vaccination rankings.

The following charts compare the health districts rankings (1-13) for vaccination rates with a factor that may help explain the reason for the ranking. The factors: age, population density, and per-capita income, are also ranked 1-13. The idea: if the rankings are close together it shows a correlation between that factor and vaccination rates.

Theory 1: Districts with fewer children will have higher vaccination rates.

Theory 2: Urban districts will have higher vaccination rates than rural districts.

Theory 3: People with more income are more likely to get vaccinated.

Looking at the average difference in rankings, there is a closer correlation between income and vaccination rate than the other two factors as seen here:

Rural districts with high vaccination rates (Summit and Wasatch) are adjacent to the Wasatch Front.

Questions still remain about why Southwest Utah is 11th on vaccinations despite having several medical options, and why Utah County still lags behind in vaccination rates.