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Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan

The pandemic declaration of COVID-19 in 2020 presented unique challenges, lessons, and opportunities for public health practice in the United States. Despite clear evidence of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, vaccine uptake and vaccine confidence remained low in many regions. Vaccine holdouts, or tho...

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Autores principales: Reichelt, Melhaney, Cullen, John Patrick, Mayer-Fried, Sara, Russell, Holly Ann, Bennett, Nancy M., Yousefi-Nooraie, Reza
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36844863
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1059067
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author Reichelt, Melhaney
Cullen, John Patrick
Mayer-Fried, Sara
Russell, Holly Ann
Bennett, Nancy M.
Yousefi-Nooraie, Reza
author_facet Reichelt, Melhaney
Cullen, John Patrick
Mayer-Fried, Sara
Russell, Holly Ann
Bennett, Nancy M.
Yousefi-Nooraie, Reza
author_sort Reichelt, Melhaney
collection PubMed
description The pandemic declaration of COVID-19 in 2020 presented unique challenges, lessons, and opportunities for public health practice in the United States. Despite clear evidence of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, vaccine uptake and vaccine confidence remained low in many regions. Vaccine holdouts, or those who are vaccine hesitant, have been an increasingly difficult population to reach. Several factors influence vaccine hesitancy and behavior in rural areas, including health care access challenges, misinformation, political loyalties, and concerns regarding the perceived lack of trustworthy evidence and knowledge of long-term effects. In March 2021, the Finger Lakes Rural Immunization Initiative (FLRII) engaged stakeholders to address vaccine hesitancy in a nine-county region of rural New York known as the Finger Lakes. Driven by data collected from community partners, physicians, and local health departments regarding their biggest barriers and greatest needs, the FLRII team created an interactive program for trusted messengers (TMs) including a stakeholder panel, called the Trusted Messenger Forum (TMF). The TMF met every 2 weeks from August 2021- August 2022 to engage local TMs and disseminate up-to-date knowledge in real time. During forum sessions, TMs shared detailed accounts of their experiences combating vaccine hesitancy in their communities and supported one another in their efforts through positive interaction and reaffirming conversations. Collaborations between community stakeholders can form a scaffolding to support a rapid response to a variety of public health problems and result in impactful change. For researchers implementing community-based research projects, modeling stakeholder panels after trusted messenger forums can be effective for diversifying the scope of the project and reacting to emergent problems in real-time.
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spelling pubmed-99476422023-02-24 Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan Reichelt, Melhaney Cullen, John Patrick Mayer-Fried, Sara Russell, Holly Ann Bennett, Nancy M. Yousefi-Nooraie, Reza Front Public Health Public Health The pandemic declaration of COVID-19 in 2020 presented unique challenges, lessons, and opportunities for public health practice in the United States. Despite clear evidence of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, vaccine uptake and vaccine confidence remained low in many regions. Vaccine holdouts, or those who are vaccine hesitant, have been an increasingly difficult population to reach. Several factors influence vaccine hesitancy and behavior in rural areas, including health care access challenges, misinformation, political loyalties, and concerns regarding the perceived lack of trustworthy evidence and knowledge of long-term effects. In March 2021, the Finger Lakes Rural Immunization Initiative (FLRII) engaged stakeholders to address vaccine hesitancy in a nine-county region of rural New York known as the Finger Lakes. Driven by data collected from community partners, physicians, and local health departments regarding their biggest barriers and greatest needs, the FLRII team created an interactive program for trusted messengers (TMs) including a stakeholder panel, called the Trusted Messenger Forum (TMF). The TMF met every 2 weeks from August 2021- August 2022 to engage local TMs and disseminate up-to-date knowledge in real time. During forum sessions, TMs shared detailed accounts of their experiences combating vaccine hesitancy in their communities and supported one another in their efforts through positive interaction and reaffirming conversations. Collaborations between community stakeholders can form a scaffolding to support a rapid response to a variety of public health problems and result in impactful change. For researchers implementing community-based research projects, modeling stakeholder panels after trusted messenger forums can be effective for diversifying the scope of the project and reacting to emergent problems in real-time. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9947642/ /pubmed/36844863 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1059067 Text en Copyright © 2023 Reichelt, Cullen, Mayer-Fried, Russell, Bennett and Yousefi-Nooraie. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Reichelt, Melhaney
Cullen, John Patrick
Mayer-Fried, Sara
Russell, Holly Ann
Bennett, Nancy M.
Yousefi-Nooraie, Reza
Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title_full Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title_fullStr Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title_full_unstemmed Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title_short Addressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: A case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
title_sort addressing covid-19 vaccine hesitancy in rural communities: a case study in engaging trusted messengers to pivot and plan
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947642/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36844863
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1059067
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