OPINION: Local leaders are key to helping reach herd immunity

Here's how people can help reach herd immunity We must engage local people from vaccine hesitant communities in leading the development and dissemination of COVID-19 vaccination education messages. Daniel Schober, opinion contributor TheHill

As the public awaits their turn to get the COVID-19 vaccine, demand for it appears high. Although acceptance of the vaccine is growing, a recent poll suggests that 30 percent of Americans are not open to getting inoculated. This makes it unlikely that once the vaccine is widely available, we will quickly reach the vaccination rates we need for herd immunity and a return to pre-pandemic life. 

There are several reasons for vaccine hesitancy including concerns about safety, a lack of urgency and distrust in the government and pharmaceutical companies. To combat this, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has launched the COVID-19 and Flu Public Education Campaign to educate the public about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. CVS Pharmacy is involved in a separate effort to educate underserved communities of color about the vaccine. While these initiatives have the potential to reach individuals who are skeptical about a COVID-19 vaccine, we must not assume that potential reach translates to effectiveness. 

To persuade the most hesitant communities to get a vaccine, we must engage the local people to lead the development and dissemination of COVID-19 vaccination education messages. 

As a public health researcher, I’ve had the chance to work directly with vaccine hesitant communities — from Latinx families to older African Americans. Through this work, I’ve partnered with community members to design health interventions, often allowing the community to take the lead. I typically see the community come up with better health intervention ideas.     

Allowing local people to lead education messaging will enable these messages to be tailored. This type of tailoring has been important with other vaccines. For example, in 2006, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — like the COVID-19 vaccine — was found to be highly effective, safe and it also requires multiple injections. However, initial vaccination rates were low — partially due to the unfounded belief that the HPV vaccine may promote sexual activity, resulting in stigma and vaccine hesitancy.  

To push the HPV vaccine, Colorado-based public health professionals engaged parents and youth from urban Denver and from semi-rural Mesa County to develop unique HPV messages tailored to community-specific hesitations. The Denver campaign focused on dispelling HPV misconceptions while the Mesa County campaign focused on HPV vaccination as a form of cancer prevention. If applied to the COVID-19 vaccines, this type of tailored, community-led design would enable the most persuasive local message to be developed and address hesitations.

Community-led education messages would also enable a sense of ownership, which would allow trusted, local people to encourage members of their communities who might be reluctant to take the vaccines.  ...

ALSO SEE: Priests, imams, rabbis and swamis are successfully urging their congregations to get the shots. Many people trust them more than they trust health officials. --NY Times