Do Origins Matter? Vaccine Skepticism among U.S.-Born and Foreign-Born Adults

Vaccine hesitancy has increased in the United States over the past decade and remains a central public health concern. A substantial body of the previous literature has emphasized vaccine skepticism as a consequence of political polarization and distrust in political institutions. This paper addresses this gap by examining the relationship between nativity and vaccine skepticism in the United States, with particular attention to whether this relationship varies by educational attainment. Using the 2022 General Social Survey (GSS) data from the United States, this study estimates ordered logistic regression models. The analysis incorporates a set of demographics, socioeconomic, political, and religious controls and explicitly models an interaction between educational attainment and nativity status. The results show that higher educational attainment is associated with lower vaccine skepticism among U.S.-born respondents. Nativity alone does not exhibit a statistically significant association with vaccine skepticism. However, education significantly moderates the relationship between nativity and vaccine attitudes: although education reduces skepticism for both groups, the magnitude of this reduction is substantially weaker among foreign-born individuals. Political ideology, age, income, and race also emerge as important correlates of vaccine skepticism. This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating that social and demographic factors shape health attitudes conditionally rather than independently. The findings indicate that nativity is not a uniform determinant of vaccine attitudes; rather, it interacts with educational attainment in shaping how individuals evaluate vaccine-related risks and benefits.