Arabs living in Israel are more likely to have their children vaccinated than the rest of the population, according to a new study.

Researchers found that Arabs generally support the idea of vaccination and trust the Israeli healthcare system as professional, fair, and non-discriminatory – even if they are suspicious of other institutions in Israel.

“Despite being a minority population with wide gaps in health indicators, Arabs have higher human papillomavirus (HPV) and measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates compared with the general Jewish population,” said researchers at Azrieli Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University.

In almost every other country in the world, minority groups have lower vaccination rates than the general population.

“The Israeli healthcare system is known for its large number of Arab doctors and nurses, and their presence contributes to a sense of trust and willingness to vaccinate,” said Dr. Jumanah Essa-Hadad, who jointly led the study with Prof. Michael Edelstein.

The study, published in the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, was based on interviews in Arabic with Arab healthcare workers, mothers and teenagers.

The researchers’ primary aim was to understand why the Arab minority population (1.9 million, or just over a fifth of Israel’s population) were so supportive of vaccines, while other minorities globally tend to be suspicious of them.

“The social norm within the Arab community strongly favors vaccinations, seeing them as routine and essential health practices, rather than controversial,” said Edelstein.

The study did, however, note that vaccination rates specifically for Covid-19 were actually lower among Israeli Arabs than among the overall population.

The researchers also found that administering vaccines at school or at well-baby clinics contributed significantly to the high uptake.

Teenagers who saw their peers getting vaccinated (for free) were more likely to follow suit, reinforcing vaccination as a community standard.

The study in Israel was part of a wider project, RIVER-EU, aimed at reducing inequalities in vaccine uptake in the European region, with parallel research programs being carried out in Finland, Greece, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and the UK.

Findings from the Israel study should serve as a model for promoting vaccination among other minority groups globally, say the authors.

Fellow researchers in Finland and England found that among particular minority populations (Somali and Bengali respectively), trust in healthcare professionals, together with accessible and supportive healthcare infrastructure, had contributed to a high vaccine uptake.