Healthcare provider recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination: Prevalence, disparities, and correlates

We assessed healthcare provider recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination, disparities across sociodemographic factors, and associations with health care coverage, social norms, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, and Fox News preference. We utilized random sample survey data of Arkansas residents (N = 2201) collected in October 2022 to identify adults with a personal provider who make up the analytical sample of this study (n = 1804). Over a third (37.2 %; n = 607) of the weighted sample did not receive a recommendation. Adjusted odds of receiving a recommendation were positively associated with health care coverage (aOR=1.66; 95 % CI [1.05, 2.64]) and negatively associated with perceiving "very few” (aOR=0.48; 95 % CI [0.33, 0.72]) or “some but not many” (aOR=0.57; 95 % CI [0.41, 0.80]) rather than “nearly all” people close to them to be vaccinated. Adjusted odds of receiving a recommendation were negatively associated with being very hesitant (vs. not at all hesitant) (aOR=0.65; 95 % CI [0.47, 0.88]). Provider recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination were not provided for a large portion of Arkansas adults, were inconsistently provided across sociodemographic groups, and were associated with health care coverage, social norms, and vaccine hesitancy. Intervening on disparities in COVID-19 vaccination may require addressing disparities in provider recommendations. •Over a third of respondents did not receive a provider recommendation.•Recommendations were unequal across sociodemographic groups.•Recommendations were positively associated with healthcare coverage.•Recommendations were negatively associated with weaker norms of vaccination.•Recommendations were negatively associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.