Investigating attributes of stigma towards individuals who did not receive a COVID-19 vaccine: An analysis of user comment threads on Reddit conducted by the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN)

Vaccine decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic led to considerable division in public trust with regards to accepting or rejecting the vaccine. While a body of literature exists which highlights stigma towards vaccine-refusing parents, the impact of stigmatization and its related impact on future vaccine hesitancy and acceptance on individuals who received the COVID-19 vaccine is underexplored. This study aimed to document the attributions of stigma towards individuals who refused a COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently caught or died from the virus through their public shaming on the r/HermanCainAward subreddit. Data were sourced through pushshift.io, where they were sorted by the Computational Thematic Analysis Toolkit into topics. Three topics were chosen for thematic analysis. Though the thematic analysis informed by Link and Phelan's conceptualization of stigma (2006), this study concluded that subjects were labeled and stereotyped using undesirable characteristics, often characteristics that are also stigmatized. Further, commenters anticipated and celebrated deaths as they occurred. These findings will inform the development of an interview guide to determine if these stereotypes and labels have led to perceived status loss and discrimination among people who refused the COVID-19 vaccine, along with understanding the impact of this stigmatization on their behaviour and intention to vaccinate.