2023/06/02 by Juanita-Dawne Bacsu, Juanita-Dawne R Bacsu, Melissa K. Andrew +23 · 6 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Aging and Gerontology Research #Blame #Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) #Gender studies #Medicine #Misinformation #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Pandemic #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Public relations #Qualitative research #Racism #Social psychology #Social science #Sociology #Thematic analysis #Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/geront/gnad061
published in The Gerontologist 64(2) (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2023/06/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: During the rollout of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines, older adults in high-income countries were often prioritized for inoculation in efforts to reduce COVID-19-related mortality. However, this prioritization may have contributed to intergenerational tensions and ageism, particularly with the limited supply of COVID-19 vaccines. This study examines Twitter discourse to understand vaccine-related ageism during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform future vaccination policies and practices to reduce ageism. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We collected 1,369 relevant tweets on Twitter using the Twint application in Python from December 8, 2020, to December 31, 2021. Tweets were analyzed using thematic analysis, and steps were taken to ensure rigor. RESULTS: Our research identified four main themes including (a) blame and hostility: "It's all their fault"; (b) incompetence and misinformation: "clueless boomer"; (c) ageist political slander; and (d) combatting ageism: advocacy and accessibility. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Our findings exposed issues of victim-blaming, hate speech, pejorative content, and ageist political slander that is deepening the divide of intergenerational conflict. Although a subset of tweets countered negative outcomes and demonstrated intergenerational solidarity, our findings suggest that ageism may have contributed to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among older adults. Consequently, urgent action is needed to counter vaccine misinformation, prohibit aggressive messaging, and promote intergenerational unity during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.