Using our voices for COVID-19 vaccine success
By Jennifer Messenger, Metropolitan Group
Earning people’s trust is key to making the COVID-19 vaccine work — and we all have a role to play.
The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is great news, bringing hope for the end of the pandemic. But the vaccine itself won’t save lives; getting people vaccinated will. As change agents, our voices are needed.
Dr. Fauci is advocating for a vaccination rate as high as 90 percent to ensure immunity in the U.S. Recent surveys show that 66 percent of people in the U.S. intend to get the vaccine, up from 50 percent last fall. Among Black and African Americans, intention has jumped from 40 to 62 percent, but justifiable distrust persists there as well as in American Indian and Alaska Native and Latino communities due to a legacy of unethical and racist medical practices. Inconsistent communication to date about the vaccine and an active anti-vaccination and disinformation movement further erode trust.
The first step is to prioritize equity in all state and national vaccine distribution and access plans, ensuring that people who have been disproportionately impacted by the virus are in the earliest phases. Our voices are essential to holding leaders accountable.
Alongside that access, we need relevant, science-based and values-connected communication from trusted sources, consistently shared across many channels, to encourage people to get vaccinated. Several promising initiatives are in the works, and here, too, we need businesses, organizations, coalitions, networks and each of us to use the power of our voices.
To help advance our collective responsibility, we share some bright spots and resources to help earn trust, build demand, protect people and advance equity.
Earning trust in communities of color and Indigenous communities
Our team was honored to work with Trust for America’s Health on a national convening and policy brief on earning trust and ensuring equitable access in communities of color and Indigenous communities. The brief emphasizes funding community-based leadership, ensuring culturally-relevant communication, offering vaccination in trusted sites and more. As states continue to define phases of access, within each category vaccination must start in communities experiencing higher rates of illness and death due to structural racism.
Equally vital is clear and decisive messaging about the “how and why” of the vaccine distribution strategy to allay competitiveness or “line jumping” from people slated for vaccination in later phases. We have to establish that starting where the need is greatest will make the vaccine most effective for us all.
From national to local: coordinated, consistent, values-aligned communication
A promising national effort: We’re watching for the launch of a new vaccine awareness campaign from the COVID Collaborative, a broad group of experts in health, education and the economy, and the Ad Council. (This group launched a campaign for health professionals in December.) Many current and former MG clients are in the advisory group — strong leaders whose evidence-, science- and equity-based approaches are urgently needed. As the Biden/Harris administration, with its science-based COVID expert advisory board, tames the chaos of the current distribution system and launches clear and consistent communication, we hope that a coordinated and well-funded public health initiative will also emerge at the federal, Tribal, territorial, state and local levels.
Early adopters and trusted messengers will be critical voices, able to relate on a personal level, reflect community values and humanize the issue. The powerful emotion of hope will be key, laying the groundwork both to establish trust, excitement and optimism about the vaccine and to deliver a strong directive to keep masking and distancing to help unvaccinated people stay safe. The vaccine is great news, and to be effective it needs a companion dose of “hang in there a little bit longer.”
A community-driven network: Morehouse School of Medicine and the Office of Minority Health at the Department of Health and Human Services created the National COVID-19 Resiliency Network, a national network of public health and community-based organizations to help address the impact of COVID-19 among racial and ethnic communities. In their introductory webinar, partner after partner — UnidosUS, 100 Black Men of America, National Congress of American Indians, Association of University Centers on Disabilities and many others — shared their work to develop culturally and linguistically appropriate messages and resources, to build cultural competence among health care providers, to earn community trust in a vaccine and to ensure that people can get it. The resulting outreach via trusted networks, with trusted local spokespeople (from pastors to musicians to grandmothers) and honest, clear information, holds great promise. President Biden’s selection of Marcella Nunez-Smith to lead the effort for equitable access to vaccines and treatments is a very bright spot, too.
A role for every business, employer, organization and network: Delivering and reinforcing messages from the COVID Collaborative and National COVID-19 Resiliency Network — and dispelling myths and misinformation — will take all of us. From workplace communication, to amplifying messages via our social media and other channels, to direct customer and client communication, to leveraging our marketing and communication platforms to reach broader communities, every organization has reach and relationships that can amplify the message. The Health Action Alliance, launching in February, will provide tools and a powerful network; the global initiative CONVINCE, whose U.S. partners include the United States Council for International Business and Business Partners for Sustainable Development, also offers guidance for businesses.
Resources
As we commit to sharing accurate, relevant, science-based messages about the vaccine, here are some resources we’re using:
- Trust for America’s Health: Building Trust in and Access to a COVID-19 Vaccine Within Communities of Color and Tribal Nations and Public Health Communication Collaborative
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: COVID-19 Vaccination Communication Toolkit for Community-Based Organizations
- Morehouse School of Medicine National COVID-19 Resiliency Network
- Public Health Institute: Communicating about the COVID-19 vaccines
- Center for Public Interest Communication: Guide to COVID-19 vaccine communication
- FrameWorks Institute: Framing COVID-19
- Health Action Alliance resources and network for businesses and organizations
- MG’s approach to shifting the narrative and values-based approach to health communication
