• Groups most vulnerable to the disease tend to be the most vulnerable to misperceptions about it.

• High vulnerability of African Americans to COVID-19 is due to structural and systemic inequalities and discrimination.


University of California, Berkeley

• Belonging to an ethnic/racial minority 

• high levels of religiosity

• strong partisan political identities (independent of parties) 

• other variables like social media usage and number of COVID-19 cases in one’s county don’t have such strong correlations with COVID-19 misconceptions


Factors correlated with high degree of COVID-19 misconceptions 


Druckman, James N., et al. “The Role of Race, Religion, and Partisanship in Misperceptions about COVID-19.” Group Processes &amp; Intergroup Relations, vol. 24, no. 4, 2021, pp. 638–657., https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430220985912. 

The role of race, religion, and partisanship in misperceptions about COVID-19

Minority groups (African Americans) and COVID-19 misconceptions


•  Significant relationship between religiosity and political partisan identity and the   number of misperceptions held 

• More substantial among republicans

• Vulnerability among these groups higher because of tendency to rely on  identity affirmation rather than systematic evaluation of information


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