  A measurement of the Higgs boson (H) production via vector boson fusion (VBF)
and its decay into a bottom quark-antiquark pair ($\mathrm{b\bar{b}}$) is
presented using proton-proton collision data recorded by the CMS experiment at
$\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 90.8
fb$^{-1}$. Treating the gluon-gluon fusion process as a background and
constraining its rate to the value expected in the standard model (SM) within
uncertainties, the signal strength of the VBF process, defined as the ratio of
the observed signal rate to that predicted by the SM, is measured to be
$\mu^\text{qqH}_\mathrm{Hb\bar{b}}$ = 1.01 $^{+0.55}_{-0.46}$. The VBF signal
is observed with a significance of 2.4 standard deviations relative to the
background prediction, while the expected significance is 2.7 standard
deviations. Considering inclusive Higgs boson production and decay into bottom
quarks, the signal strength is measured to be
$\mu^\text{incl.}_\mathrm{Hb\bar{b}}$ = 0.99 $^{+0.48}_{-0.41}$, corresponding
to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.9) standard deviations.
