Building Vaccine Confidence Through Intentional Community Engagement
Greenlight Ready, a start-up in Durham, brings together clinical, technical, and community health expertise to support the Durham and North Carolina community during this pandemic. Among its activities are providing communities with information about the COVID-19 vaccine, empowering community leaders to speak about vaccinations with their community members, and addressing concerns while increasing vaccine confidence. As North Carolina continues the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, public health messaging and vaccine education are critical to getting everyone vaccinated as quickly, safely and equitably as possible.
Public health experts stress the importance of vaccination to help protect against COVID-19. In addition to other COVID-19 prevention measures, vaccination is our best hope against moving into a COVID-19-free future. However, vaccines are only as effective as the number of people they reach, also known as vaccine uptake. Vaccine uptake requires intentional community engagement to help increase trust in available inoculations. Greenlight’s vaccine town halls hope to provide that service.
Greenlight conducts community-led town halls with various members of the local community. Its goal is to work with trusted public health experts and community leaders to share information about the COVID-19 vaccine, and increase vaccine confidence. Research has demonstrated that intentional trust building, and respectful and efficacious communication can influence communities to participate in immunization. Hence, transparent and thoughtful conversations between community leaders and individuals can help individuals learn the risks and benefits of vaccination and empower individuals to make informed vaccination decisions.
Greenlight has found that town halls have already impacted community perception of the vaccine. Twelve out of twenty town hall survey participants who completed a pre- and post-town hall survey reported increases in their confidence and/or knowledge of the COVID-19 vaccine after they attended a community led town hall. While a seemingly small number, the impact can mean the difference between one accepting or refusing the vaccine when offered to them. Among questions that attendees have asked are those related to when they can expect to receive the vaccine, what to expect after receiving the vaccine and how many times it will need to be taken. We address these questions and more in our town halls.
Going forward, it will be intentional community engagement and collaboration with experts that will address concerns, combat misinformation and disinformation, and help build community trust in the vaccine. If you’re interested in attending an upcoming town hall or have questions about COVID-19 vaccines, contact Greenlight Ready at carly@greenlightready.com. For Durham-related COVID-19 resources, click here.
