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How to Conduct a Rapid Community Assessment
A guide to help you understand your community's needs around vaccination
On This Page
Rapid community assessment (RCA) is a process for quickly collecting community insights about a public health issue in order to inform program design. The assessment involves reviewing existing data and conducting community-based interviews, listening sessions, observations, digital listening, and surveys.
On this page, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shares an assessment guide and tools for those who wish to better understand their community’s needs regarding vaccine acceptance and uptake among adults, adolescents, and children.
- To identify communities at risk for low vaccine uptake among adults, adolescents, or children.
- To understand what communities are thinking about vaccines for adults, adolescents, and children, and plan for potential solutions to increase confidence and uptake.
- To identify community leaders, trusted messengers, and other important channels through which you can reach communities.
- To identify areas of intervention and prioritize potential intervention strategies to increase vaccine confidence and uptake.
Rapid Community Assessment Toolkit
PRINTOUTS
Download, edit, or print Word versions of the tools: RCA Toolkit
RCA Toolkit includes:
- Vaccine Efforts Learning Template
- Implementation Guide for Community Interviews and Listening Sessions
- Observation
- Intercept Interviews
- Digital Listening and Monitoring Tools
- Insights Synthesis Tool
Additional Resources
- What is Vaccine Confidence?
- COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Vaccine Confidence Among Adults
- 12 COVID-19 Strategies for Your Community
- Community Engagement Playbook (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) – Guidance on what programs/partners could consider as they develop a plan for engaging communities, to include four phases and nine key activities of community engagement.