The next variable in the County Health Rankings updated is Flu Vaccinations. The data is from 2023 from the Medicare database for Medicare enrollees. The overall flu vaccination rate for the state was 52% which was higher than the U.S. rate of 44%. Potter county had the lowest rate at 26%. Montgomery had the highest at rate at 61%. This post will look at how Flu and vaccinations predict Trump’s 2024 Vote in Pennsylvania.
The graph above shows 2023 flu vaccination rates on the horizontal axis and Trump’s 2024 vote is on the vertical axis. Each dot represents one of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. The regression line is the best fit straight line for the data. It says that for every 1% increase in the flu vaccination rate in the county, there is a predicted 1.2% decrease in Trump’s 2024 vote in that county. The R2 statistic of 0.408 means that flu vaccination rates explain 40.8% of the variability in Trump’s vote. If 100% of the variability were accounted for, all of the counties would form a perfect straight line sloping downward.
As usual Philadelphia County is an outlier with a vaccination rate of 47% but 20% of the vote for Trump in 2024. The second graph shows that if we exclude Philadelphia, 51.1% of the variability is accounted for. The regression line still predicts a 1.2% decrease in Trump’s vote for every 1% increase in the county flu vaccination rate.
One should not conclude that a cause and effect relationship exists between 2023 flu vaccination rates and Trump’s 2024 vote in Pennsylvania. It means that PA counties with lower vaccination rates were more likely to have higher percentages of the vote for Trump. Other factors may be at play to explain how flu vaccinations predict Trump’s vote in PA.
COVID Vaccinations and Trump
There is a similar but weaker pattern in looking at COVID vaccination rates and Trump’s vote. The data is from 2021 during the pandemic. The COVID vaccination rates are from 2021 and include all ages and the flu rates are for the elderly on Medicare. This suggests that these results are generalizable beyond flu vaccinations. Vaccine hesitancy is with support for Trump.