12 COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies for Your Community

Vaccine ambassadors train community members to disseminate important health information in their communities. Adapted from the lay health advisor model, ambassadors are most effective when they are trusted community members and share similar beliefs and characteristics with their peers. Anyone can be an ambassador; it is not restricted to community leaders or people in leadership positions.

• Barriers Addressed: Equity, Access, Prevailing Social Norms, Mistrust, Mis- and Disinformation, Cultural Relevance
• Research Base: Framing vaccine uptake as a prevailing social norm has a positive impact. A survey study showed that when people think that most people around them want to be vaccinated, they are more likely to be vaccinated as well. Discussing with peers the risk of contracting disease and the decision to vaccinate impacts one’s decision. Endorsements from peers in one’s own social network can also help spread credible information about the vaccines.

The "Motivate, Vaccinate, and Activate" campaign encouraged residents of the under-resourced, predominantly Latinx Mission District of San Francisco, California, to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The culturally tailored initiative was organized through a community-academic-city public health partnership among Unidos en Salud (United in Health), the University of San Francisco, and the City of San Francisco. They engaged trusted messengers and social networks and used a convenient vaccination site. These efforts helped increase vaccinations and overcome misinformation, distrust of institutions, and lack of access to the vaccines. Community health workers educated the community about the vaccines, texted people to let them know of their eligibility, and used public media to spread the word about vaccination locations.

Vaccinated community members became ambassadors to encourage friends and family members to get vaccinated.

Important steps in this strategy included:

• Two dedicated staff shared their personal experiences modeling how this could be done.
• Staff then encouraged others to share their vaccination experiences with their unvaccinated friends and family to encourage them to get vaccinated.
• Staff provided tips on how to handle difficult conversations, provided myth-busting information, and role played.

Philly Teen Vaxx is a youth-led coalition working to increase vaccine confidence and rates among youth. The partnership between the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the School District of Philadelphia trained 45 Philly teens to serve as vaccine ambassadors. The teens organize vaccination events with the school district and engage in peer-to-peer conversations in person and online.

Key Components of Philly Teen Vaxx:

• Offer education opportunities for teen ambassadors to learn about public health, vaccination, health communication, and COVID-19 vaccines.
• Hold vaccination events where teens can access COVID-19 vaccine information, vaccination, and fun activities.
• Facilitate teen-to-teen conversations and debunk vaccine misinformation being spread on social media.

Reminder/Recall are messages sent to patients to remind them of recommended or upcoming treatment. Messages can be sent by autodialed phone calls, text messages, emails, or post-cards, for example.

• Barriers Addressed: Equity, Access, Forgetfulness, Friction, Health Literacy, Lack of Adequate Information
• Research Base: Reminders of upcoming vaccination appointments can increase vaccination rates. This intervention is often part of a multi-pronged approach combined with removing access barriers to optimize uptake.
  • Duval County Health Department in Florida successfully increased childhood vaccination rates by using data from the Florida Shots Registry to identify families with upcoming or overdue child vaccinations and sending them reminders with educational materials through phone calls, letters, and home visits.
  • A study in Rochester, New York, showed that when interventions included patient reminders, provider reminders, and telephone outreach combined, older adults were up to six times as likely to be vaccinated against flu.
  • A University of Pennsylvania study found that simple reminder text messages sent to 47,306 patients in two health systems increased flu vaccinations by around 5%. Of the 19 different messages tested, those most effective were presented in a professional format and tone—surprisingly not casual  or interactive. The most successful messages reminded patients twice to get their reserved vaccine at their upcoming doctor's appointment.

Several health departments, including in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Baltimore, Maryland, are using text messages to:

• Help people schedule COVID-19 vaccination appointments
• Provide education and vaccination site information
• Gauge views on vaccination

Certain populations can be reached with text messaging, either based on race, ethnicity, or age, or used in geographic locations with low vaccination rates. In most cases, texts are provided in English and Spanish, but health departments or other entities sending texts can translate and customize to any language spoken in their community of focus. This can also be used to remind people of their second vaccination appointment, if applicable.

A study evaluated UCLA Health’s text messaging program that delivers simple reminder text messages to more than 150,000 patients for their COVID-19 vaccine appointments and follow through. Every message led with a focus on scheduling a COVID-19 vaccination appointment and contained a link for patients to immediately sign up for an appointment.

Key Findings:

• Text message reminders boosted appointment rates by 6% and vaccination by 3.6% within the healthcare system.
• Messages that included ownership language like, “a vaccination is reserved for you” performed the best compared to the control group, as did messages that included an educational video.

Well-crafted emails containing behavioral nudges can also be used as reminders to get vaccinated.

A large Pennsylvania health system found that after a five-week effort to get employees vaccinated against COVID-19, 41% still had not scheduled their vaccination. They conducted a study that showed individually addressed emails containing behaviorally informed messages increased vaccination registration 3% compared to the control group.

The emails had three important components:

• Told the healthcare worker that vaccines would soon be available more broadly, thus, reducing employees’ access and emphasizing scarcity.
• Contained a message either about social norms, saying that many fellow employees had already chosen to get vaccinated; or about risks, comparing the risk of vaccination with the risk of COVID-19.
• Asked employees to make an active choice by clicking through to schedule their vaccination appointment.

Motivational interviewing refers to patient-centered conversations designed to increase patient motivation and likelihood of making the health behavior.

• Barriers Addressed: Misperception, Health Literacy, Uncertainty
• Research Base: Motivational interviewing aims to support decision making by strengthening a person’s intention to get vaccinated based on their own arguments. The healthcare professional informs the patient about vaccination in alignment with the patient’s specific informational needs and with respect for their beliefs. Motivational interviewing has been shown to increase parents’ vaccine confidence.

  A pilot study using motivational interviewing in maternity wards during postpartum stays found the strategy led to:

  • 15% increase in mothers’ intention to get their child vaccinated
  • 7% increase in infants’ vaccination coverage at seven months
  • 9% greater chance of complete vaccination at two years

  Motivational interviewing significantly improved HPV vaccination completion among adolescent patients in a study that used a presumptive vaccine recommendation with motivational interviewing follow up for parents who remained resistant. Some healthcare providers have concerns that this approach takes too long and that such a conversation may not be billable.

Motivational interviewing can be a strategy to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

For example, a demonstration project in the Pittsburgh area showed that innovative notification and motivational interviewing strategies at a regional chain supermarket pharmacy increased the number of herpes zoster, flu, pertussis, and pneumococcal vaccines given to adults.

Pharmacy staff identified the patient, who then received an automated notification about their vaccination status. The staff used motivational interviewing techniques face-to-face or by telephone to engage patients in conversation about getting vaccinated.

Community pharmacies are accessible and able to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to many customers, along with their other patient-centered products and services and may be able to implement similar programs.

Financial incentives aim to motivate people to participate in a health behavior by providing a tangible reward, or a chance at a tangible reward, for completion of the behavior.

• Barrier Addressed: Inertia
• Research Base: While evidence supporting the use of incentives to increase vaccine uptake is overall limited, a guaranteed gift incentive. For example, offering a $30 incentive increased vaccination rates at college campus clinics, according to one study, and a study in four North Carolina counties showed a $25 incentive helped encourage equitable vaccine distribution by eliminating financial barriers for low-income individuals.

  Two studies of the Ohio COVID-19 vaccine lottery and a study on 24 states with lotteries have been less positive, showing the likelihood that the lottery approach has not increased vaccine uptake.

  It is important to note that these are two different approaches—one is a guaranteed gift and the other a chance at winning. Also, the audiences differ with the first comprised of young adult college students and the latter a general population. Thus, the approach and audience may affect vaccine uptake differently.

The Minnesota “Kids Deserve a Shot” campaign provided families with $200 gift cards if their 5 to 11-year-olds received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. More than 22,000 children registered to receive a gift card through the program. This was modeled after the same incentive program for 12- to 17-year-olds. Within one week of launching the 12 to 17 campaign, first dose vaccinations increased by 40%.

• In Louisiana, the department of health implemented the “Shot for 100” incentive program. Individuals receiving their COVID-19 vaccine at a community-based vaccination centers received a $100 VISA gift card. Over 19 thousand people participated in the program.
• People receiving their boosters at city-run vaccination sites in New York City were eligible to receive a $100 gift card or tickets to events around the city. Since the program’s inception, vaccination rates rose 25% and the city distributed over 800,000 gift cards.
• Wisconsin Department of Human Services hosted a month-long incentive program that gave $100 VISA gift cards to people receiving their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. They reached over 80,000 individuals, many from the refugee community and disproportionately affected populations.

School-located vaccination programs are events held at a school campus to remove logistical barriers and increase vaccine uptake. These can be open to students only or offered to faculty, families, and the greater community as well.

• Barriers Addressed: Access, Friction, Prevailing Social Norms, Uncertainty, Lack of Adequate Information
• Research Base: Voluntary school-located vaccination programs have demonstrated high coverage, though they are not without challenges. One of the major challenges is obtaining informed parental consent when needed. School-located programs can be effective even with “controversial” vaccinations such as for HPV. The setting also has been shown to yield higher completion rates of multi-dose vaccine series as compared to community health center settings.

Parkway School District in St. Louis County, Missouri held a school-located COVID-19 vaccination event in partnership with a local pharmacy. In a survey, 350 parents said they were interested, and the 204 students who were vaccinated at the event represented about 5% of eligible students in the district.

Timing of the event may have affected turnout because some expressed concern about the second dose occurring during the week of final exams for some students. School nurses are trusted sources of health information and play an important role in educating students and families about the COVID-19 vaccines.

The Illinois Department of Health took a proactive approach to partnering with school districts and community sites to plan vaccination events for children ages 12 to 17 and 5 to 11 years old. They reached out to every school district and provided guidance for setting up COVID-19 community partner vaccination clinics. During the vaccine rollout for children ages 12 to 17 years, they set up 870 mobile clinics and vaccinated over two thirds of the 12 to 17 population – the highest rate in the Midwest.

While this strategy focuses on vaccinating students through school-located vaccination programs, school settings may also be ideal locations for community vaccination events. Much for the same reason schools are often used as voting locations, generally they:

• Are easily accessible
• Have ample parking
• Have both indoor and outdoor spaces available
• Are familiar places

Home-delivered vaccination efforts reach populations where they live; traditionally used when barriers to transportation and access exist.

• Barriers Addressed: Equity, Access, Inertia, Friction
• Research Base: Bringing vaccines to people at their homes is an effective means to reach several hard-to-reach populations. This strategy can be applied to homebound people and to neighborhoods with low vaccination rates.
  In an effective effort in New York City, individuals canvassed specific communities to educate people about the flu vaccine and offered it to people on the spot. They focused on:
  • People with substance use disorders
  • Immigrant populations
  • Older adults
  • Sex workers
  • People experiencing homelessness
  Both appointment-based home delivery and canvassing methods may be effective ways to deliver COVID-19 vaccines. When considering a canvassing method, be sure to take your community members’ preferences into consideration. Some may not want to be reached at their home.

The COVID-19 vaccination effort has shifted from mass vaccination sites to smaller neighborhood and community clinics and includes home-based efforts to give all individuals the opportunity to get vaccinated.

The Emergency Operations Center in Multnomah County, Oregon, partnered with the Multnomah County Public Health Division and County Human Services to provide COVID-19 vaccinations through a mobile program to reach people where they live. Initially vaccinating those in adult care homes, they expanded the project’s scope to include other homebound adults.

The county's mobile door-to-door COVID-19 response team pairs Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, who are licensed medical practitioners, and other volunteers to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to people in their homes. In one week, the teams reached nearly all care homes and vaccinated more than 900 people.

“Getting to meet people ‘where they are’ and administering a life-saving vaccine is an incredibly powerful experience. It truly brought people hope. The coordination it takes to make this kind of outreach happen is no small feat – but it’s precisely the kind of work we need to do to respond quickly to inequalities and gaps in vaccine distribution, especially for those who are most vulnerable.”

– Dr. Sharon Meieran, a Medical Reserve Corps volunteer

Vaccination clinics held on-site at a workplace removes logistical barriers and creates norms among employees. The clinics can be open to employees only or extended to family members or the greater community.

• Barriers Addressed: Access, Cost, Prevailing Social Norms, Friction
• Research Base: Numerous studies have shown that workplace vaccination programs can increase vaccination rates among workers and their families. In one study where flu vaccination rates increased significantly after the intervention, 90% of vaccinated employees received a vaccine at employer-sponsored events. Employees reported their top reasons for getting vaccinated at work were that the vaccine was free and convenient, and they didn’t have to miss work to get it. There is evidence that workplace COVID-19 vaccination may have similar uptake success:

• • A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 77% of those employed stated that they trust their employer for providing reliable information about the COVID-19 vaccines.
  • Many counties, such as Clackamas County in Oregon, provide on-site COVID-19 vaccine clinics at local businesses. In Clackamas County, businesses simply complete and submit an online request form.

Tyson Foods is offering on-site COVID-19 vaccination at many of their facilities. In Iowa and Illinois, the company partnered with the Midwest grocery chain Hy-Vee and state and local public health departments to vaccinate food processing workers at four locations in the two states.

By early March 2021, Hy-Vee staff vaccinated over 2,400 employees in Iowa. Workers in the meatpacking industry were hit hard by COVID-19 and were excited for the opportunity to get vaccinated. The workers are diverse, with one facility requiring vaccine education information translation in 18 languages. Tyson Foods also offered workers up to four hours of regular pay if they needed to get their vaccine(s) outside of a normal shift or away from the jobsite.

In a final effort to prevent additional COVID-related illness and deaths among its 120,000 person workforce, Tyson Foods implemented a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, resulting in a 96% company-wide vaccination rate.

Small businesses can support on-site vaccination efforts. According to a 2020 Gallup poll, small businesses are one of the most trusted institutions in the United States.

In Jackson, Mississippi, the Broad Street Baking Company partnered with the Mississippi State Department of Health and the G.A. Carmichael Family Health Center to hold mobile vaccination events in a parking lot near the restaurant in April and June 2021.

Vaccination requirements are policies that require employees, students, or patrons to be vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination to comply.

• Barriers Addressed: Policy, Inertia, Prevailing Social Norms, Politicization
• Research Base: Vaccine requirements by organizations may be an effective way to increase vaccination rates and decrease disease incidence. Requirements by employers or schools ask that employees or students provide proper documentation of vaccination to comply with the organization's vaccination policies. Exemptions can be offered for specific circumstances, such as medical and religious reasons.
  Before COVID-19, vaccination requirements were not often used for adult populations, except for military requirements and for healthcare workers to receive flu shots.
  School mandates positively impact uptake for routine childhood vaccines and some studies suggest that vaccination for children and workers, including mandatory vaccination, decreases absenteeism.
  A COVID States Project report detailing survey findings from more than 20,000 people across the U.S. revealed high public support for mandating vaccines, with 65% of respondents supporting vaccine requirements at the federal, state, and local levels. Respondents also strongly support vaccine requirements for attending in-person school (63%) or university (68%) or getting on an airplane (71%).
  COVID-19 vaccination requirements by employers have been effective, even with getting those most hesitant vaccinated. Gallup’s COVID-19 tracking survey found that while COVID-19 vaccination mandates can be divisive, the majority (55%) of U.S. workers favor workplace vaccination requirements.

Many employers and more than 1,000 colleges and universities  require staff and students to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with many also requiring booster shots to be considered up to date on their COVID vaccinations. Even though the government’s mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees to implement a COVID-19 vaccine requirement was withdrawn, several large companies still require staff to be vaccinated to return to the office. Many federal and state governments are also requiring vaccination for employees; some with an alternative option to get tested for COVID-19 weekly.

Wesleyan University:

Wesleyan University in Connecticut with 3,200 students was the first higher education institution in the country to require booster shots for students, faculty, and staff. The university’s president announced the mandate in a video released two days before Thanksgiving 2021. To help students get their booster dose, the university held two on-campus booster clinics, distributing 600 shots.

The president stated in his video, “Thanks to our high vaccination rates, mask mandates, and robust testing protocols, the Wesleyan campus community has consistently maintained COVID-19 positivity rates lower than our surrounding area. This remains the case, even as we have seen an increase in positive campus cases. Most importantly, since we have the protection of vaccinations, the COVID-19 cases we’ve had thus far have been asymptomatic or mild.”

Houston Methodist Health System:

Houston Methodist was the first health system in the country to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for all employees to protect their patients and workforce. The health system is made up of an academic medical center and six community hospitals employing over 26,000 people.

The first phase of the policy included managers and new hires and was gradually rolled out to all staff. Those not in compliance received a two-week suspension during which they had another opportunity to get vaccinated.

Several employees pushed back on the requirement and took the hospital system to federal court. The Texas court dismissed the lawsuit and upheld the vaccine requirement stating that the requirement does not break any laws and is in line with public policy.

Citigroup:

Several large American banks require employees to be vaccinated or be subject to frequent testing. Citigroup required all 65,000 employees to get vaccinated or be placed on unpaid leave or eventually terminated for noncompliance. This policy was effective, resulting in 99% vaccination rate among staff.

Student-Athletes and Coaches:

As many sports involve close contact with others, may be held in poorly ventilated indoor facilities, and require players to be healthy to participate, communities nationwide have implemented COVID-19 vaccination requirements and strong recommendations for students and coaches to participate in team sports. Hawaii and cities and counties in Maryland and Pennsylvania initially had COVID-19 vaccine requirements for public school student-athletes, but now strongly encourage them to get vaccinated. For an example of a guidance document, see Rhode Island Department of Health’s Guidance for Youth, Adult, and School Sports.

Effective messages are messages that have undergone testing with the intended population and were shown to produce the desired outcome.

Trusted messengers are people seen as credible sources of information by specific populations. Trusted messengers can be trained to be vaccine ambassadors (see Strategy 1) and may include local doctors, community and faith-based leaders, or local celebrities.

• Barriers Addressed: Mistrust, Health Literacy, Misinformation, Lack of Adequate Information
• Research Base: The messengers and messages used to convey information about vaccines are important to improving vaccine confidence.

The COVID-19 States Project Report evaluates results from two experiments designed to test effective communication strategies for increasing COVID-19 vaccine confidence and intent. The first experiment tested five messages and a control message for the effects they had on participants’ willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The messages involved themes of:

• Patriotism
• Harm reduction
• Social norms
• Scientist recommendation
• Physician recommendation

The study found that messages involving a personal physician or a scientist recommending vaccination were the most compelling. The second experiment looked at messenger effectiveness and found that messages delivered by politicians increased resistance to vaccination, while those delivered by physicians or scientists showed increased vaccine confidence and intent.

Messages and messengers should be continually evaluated for effectiveness and tested across populations with different demographics. Continued evaluation of messages enables communication campaigns to tailor messages to specific concerns and demographic populations, which is shown to be more effective than generalized messaging.

The Black Coalition Against COVID-19, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and Esperanza Hope for All created a COVID-19 vaccine communications campaign called “The Conversation,” which uses the hashtag #BetweenUsAboutUs.

The campaign features 300 videos of Black and Latino doctors, nurses, and scientists talking about vaccine facts and dispelling misinformation and sharing why they got vaccinated.

In addition to the videos, the campaign offers graphics, print media, social media content, and TV and radio public service announcements. The content is free for educational use and communities and organizations are invited to download and use the materials in English and Spanish.

Provider recommendation refers to healthcare professionals recommending that a patient receives a vaccination.

• Barriers Addressed: Inertia, Friction, Mistrust, Uncertainty, Mis- and Disinformation, Lack of Adequate Information

• Research Base: Provider recommendations have strong support for increasing vaccination. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices includes this strategy in their recommendations for improving vaccination rates. Some people may have more trust in their own doctor than in the medical community in general.
  • Research on vaccinations in pregnant people found that a provider recommendation increases vaccination rates, and when coupled with offering the vaccination during doctor’s office visits, doubles the likelihood of uptake.
  • In a study of flu vaccination in adults, patients whose providers recommended and offered the flu vaccine during their office visit were 1.76 times more likely than those who did not receive a recommendation to be vaccinated.
  • The HPV vaccine, which relies on healthcare professionals for distribution, depends on provider recommendations for adequate coverage. A study on low HPV vaccination rates in North Carolina found that lack of provider recommendations contributed to under-vaccination in the population.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene created a resource called Vaccine Talks that emphasizes the importance of healthcare professional recommendations in increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates.

Vaccine Talks offers resources for healthcare providers and their staff to recommend and offer COVID-19 vaccination at multiple patient interaction points.

The health commissioner released a statement promoting Vaccine Talks  emphasizes patients’ trust in their healthcare providers and saying that providers’ strong recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines will help drive vaccination rates in the city.

Vaccine Talks includes a resource called the “Use Every Opportunity” tool, instructing healthcare offices on how to integrate COVID-19 vaccine education and offers into all healthcare settings. Vaccine Talks also provides a form providers can complete to request that the public health system contact the patient to schedule their vaccination at a clinic or in their home, if needed.

To address a decline in vaccine demand, Washington State Department of Health (DOH) created the Power of Providers (POP) initiative to encourage healthcare providers to leverage their influence as trusted voices and promote COVID-19 vaccinations during their routine patient encounters.

“We are calling on all licensed healthcare professionals to talk to their patients about COVID-19 vaccines. One conversation at a time. One vaccination at a time. It’s opportunities we should not miss at the diabetes check, at the blood pressure check, at the knee repair.” – Greg Endler, Washington State DOH Deputy Director of Health Promotion and Education.

Providers enroll in POP by completing an online commitment form to agree to follow a four-step process at every patient encounter to help “SAVE” lives:

• Seek patients’ COVID-19 vaccination status verbally or through immunization records
• Ask/Educate unvaccinated patients about the vaccines, and offer more information if they’re unsure
• Vaccinate patients who agree to be vaccinated, or refer them to a COVID-19 vaccine provider
• Empower patients and staff to share their vaccination status with their friends, families, and communities

Participating providers have access to clinical and communication resources and patient education materials. To further incentivize providers to have COVID-19 vaccine conversations with their patients, providers can be reimbursed for COVID-19 vaccine counseling, even during visits unrelated to vaccination, by using a newly created Current Procedural Terminology code.

This strategy consists of tactics used to address and dismantle misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation refers to false information shared by people who do not intend to mislead others,  and disinformation refers to false information that is deliberately created and disseminated with malicious intent to manipulate a narrative.

• Barriers Addressed: Misperception, Mis- and Disinformation, Lack of Adequate Information
• Research Base: Believing incorrect information can act as a barrier to vaccine uptake. Vaccine myths are particularly difficult to combat, in part because people tend to believe information that is in line with their existing attitudes and world view.
  Fact-checking and debunking appear to be effective tools to counteract the effects of misinformation, particularly when the correct information sources are universities and health institutions. Debunking incorrect information with messages that reflect the worldview and affirm the values of the intended audience may be the most successful approach.

  Debunking misinformation is challenging. Misinformation is often simple and more cognitively attractive than fact, and refuting a falsehood often requires repeating it, which reinforces the falsehood in the believer. Techniques that help dispel falsehoods include:

  • Warning the audience upfront that misleading information is coming
  • Using fewer arguments to refute the myth
  • Keeping the factual statements simple

Everyday social media users can play an important part in correcting misinformation. While the person originally expressing the misinformation may not be moved because the correction does not align with their world view, others see the correct information and are impacted by it. Tips for effective corrections include responding with empathy and providing facts, rather than simply saying something is wrong.

Dr. Kristamarie Collman, a family medicine physician, created a TikTok to address COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions and encourage trusted, science-based education. In her 11-second post, she paired a video of herself with upbeat music and text pop-ups addressing common COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions, such as “The COVID vaccine will not give you COVID. Will not change or alter your DNA. Does not have a microchip to track you.” She also used hashtags: #covid #health #learnontiktok #myths #blackdoctors. Her post received more than 60,000 likes, more than 600,000 plays, and nearly 3,000 shares.

“I felt it was my responsibility as a physician to make sure that I was spreading correct information, especially on social media. I want people to know that as a Black woman, as a Black physician, that I hear them and I understand their hesitancy, I understand their concerns,” said Dr. Collman.

Dr. Collman has also created TikToks to explain mRNA vaccines, COVID-19 vaccine side effects, and Bell’s Palsy and COVID-19 vaccines in addition to documenting her personal vaccination experiences.

Disseminating factual and easy to understand information combats mis- and disinformation. This can be done in a variety of ways, including:

• Identifying and training social media micro-influencers in your community, such as Dr. Collman
• Using your own social media account to promote accurate information

The Office of Minority Health within the Tennessee Department of Health’s Division of Disparities Elimination (DHDE) convened the COVID-19 Health Disparity Task Force, a group of more than 800 partners across the state. The Health Disparity Task Force aimed to address disparities by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of disseminating information to communities they serve. The Task Force includes community and faith-based partners, members of academia, healthcare providers, and public health officials. The group meets weekly to discuss trends, hear from subject matter experts, identify sources of distrust, and address concerns from under-resourced communities.

Through hosting listening sessions and town halls for community partners and Task Force members, the DHDE team learned that no matter which group they engaged, they all had questions and concerns about the vaccine.

“There was a lot of misinformation we had to talk through, beginning with testing and eventually vaccination,” said Dr. Kimberly Lamar, assistant commissioner of Division of Disparities Elimination.

To increase vaccine trust and accessibility in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, the team strengthened connections with small business owners, faith leaders, academia, federally qualified health centers, and other key partners to share vaccine information through as many modes as possible.