Addressing Vaccine Confidence, Hesitancy, and Uptake
Vaccines are one of the most successful and cost-effective ways to protect against infectious diseases and death. Local health departments (LHDs) play a critical role in providing and connecting people in their communities with immunization services and counseling.
With support from the CDC, NACCHO is collaborating with LHDs to address vaccine confidence, hesitancy, and uptake through the following projects:
- Increasing Vaccine Confidence Project: Through the Local Public Health Initiatives to Increase Vaccine Confidence project, awarded LHDs identify pockets of low vaccination within their communities, implement pro-vaccination information campaigns, and conduct strategic planning to identify solutions and processes to address vaccine equity.
- Increasing Vaccine Uptake Project: In the Supporting Local Health Departments to Increase Vaccine Uptake through COVID-19 project, NACCHO funded LHD demonstration sites to identify and implement strategies to maintain and increase immunization coverage levels of routinely recommended vaccines, including influenza, as well as protect vulnerable communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Project: Through the Equipping LHDs to Address Vaccine Hesitancy project, NACCHO funds awarded LHDs to identify a community of low vaccine uptake, conduct CDC's Rapid Community Assessment to identify barriers to vaccination, and develop a plan to address barriers and hesitancies and increase vaccine uptake.
- Partnering for Vaccine Equity: Through the national Partnering for Vaccine Equity project, NACCHO works with LHDs to increase flu and COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake among racial and ethnic minority adults experiencing disparities in vaccination coverage. NACCHO supports LHDs to identify and address vaccine hesitancy, engage community stakeholders and influential messengers to support vaccine messaging, provide education and vaccine delivery at the community level, and facilitate relationships between vaccine providers and the community to increase vaccine confidence and access opportunities.
- Building COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence: The Equipping Local Health Departments to Build COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence project provides LHDs training, technical assistance, and other resources to increase equitable COVID-19 vaccine uptake, particularly among priority populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 disease and complications. LHDs receive support for collaborating and partnering with stakeholders that serve as trusted messengers at the community level to support messaging for COVID-19 vaccination.
NACCHO developed these resources to assist LHDs in addressing vaccine hesitancy and increasing vaccine confidence and uptake in their communities.
This training was based on the tools and resources developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement as a part of the 100 Million Healthier Lives Initiative's Equity Action Lab. The model was adapted by NACCHO to focus on increasing vaccine confidence with a health equity lens.
These resources include stories, tools, and campaigns that LHDs have developed that we hope others can utilize to develop strategies that address vaccine confidence, hesitancy, and uptake in their own communities.
Williamson County and Cities Health District in Texas was one of the sites funded as part of the Increasing Vaccine Confidence project. As part of their project, they produced a series of videos called Immunity Takes Community. In these videos, they interviewed key community leaders about why they chose to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and why members of their community should too. They have videos in both Spanish and English.
They also created various print ads directed at different populations within their district, from teenagers to farmworkers.
As part of their participation in the Equipping Local Health Departments to Address Vaccine Hesitancy project, Jefferson County Public Health in Colorado worked with teens and young adults in their county to develop a social media campaign sharing why young people chose to get the COVID-19 vaccine. This campaign was developed to increase social norms in this population around getting vaccinated.
For questions or inquiries, please email our team at [email protected].