Participant demographics.

Despite the worsening health disparities among youth in detention during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been minimal exploration into the pandemic experiences of detained youth and opportunities for pandemic mitigation. This paper analyzes the perspectives of youth in detention on the pandemic, including the effect of the pandemic on their detention experience and their perceptions about COVID-19 vaccination. The study used purposive sampling to recruit 16 participants (aged 14–17 years) from two juvenile detention centers in the urban Midwest. We conducted semi-structured interviews and analyzed verbatim transcripts using a hybrid deductive-inductive approach and thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: 1) personal experience influenced youth perceptions of pandemic severity and risk; 2) distrust and misconceptions contributed to youth vaccine hesitancy or refusal; 3) desired opportunities and parental opinion motivated youth to get the COVID-19 vaccine; and 4) pandemic mitigation strategies negatively impacted youths’ detention center experience. Study findings identify opportunities for detention centers to minimize the negative impacts of pandemic mitigation strategies on youth in detention, expand vaccination knowledge and uptake, and build trust to positively impact the health and wellbeing of detained youth currently and during future pandemics.