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Background: COVID‐19 vaccines can offer a route out of the pandemic, yet initial research suggests that many are unwilling to be vaccinated. A rise in the spread of misinformation is thought to have played a significant role in vaccine hesitancy. To maximize uptake, it is important to understand why misinformation has been able to take hold at this time and why it may pose a more significant problem within certain contexts. Objective: To understand people's COVID‐19 beliefs, their interactions with (mis)information during COVID‐19 and attitudes towards a COVID‐19 vaccine. Design and Participants: Bradford, UK, was chosen as the study site to provide evidence to local decision makers. In‐depth phone interviews were carried out with 20 people from different ethnic groups and areas of Bradford during Autumn 2020. Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted. Results: Participants discussed a wide range of COVID‐19 misinformation they had encountered, resulting in confusion, distress and mistrust. Vaccine hesitancy could be attributed to three prominent factors: safety concerns, negative stories and personal knowledge. The more confused, distressed and mistrusting participants felt about their social worlds during the pandemic, the less positive they were about a vaccine. Conclusions: COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy needs to be understood in the context of the relationship between the spread of misinformation and associated emotional reactions. Vaccine programmes should provide a focused, localized and empathetic response to counter misinformation. Patient or Public Contribution: A rapid community and stakeholder engagement process was undertaken to identify COVID‐19 priority topics important to Bradford citizens and decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK COVID-19 lockdown has included restricting social movement and interaction to slow the spread of disease and reduce demand on NHS acute services. It is likely that the impacts of restrictions will hit the least advantaged disproportionately and will worsen existing structural inequalities amongst deprived and ethnic minority groups. The aim of this study is to deliver rapid intelligence to enable an effective COVID-19 response, including co-production of interventions, that address key issues in the City of Bradford, UK, and nationally. In the longer term we aim to understand the impacts of the response on health trajectories and inequalities in these. In this paper we describe our approach and protocol. We plan an adaptive longitudinal mixed methods approach embedded with Born in Bradford (BiB) birth cohorts which have rich existing data (including questionnaire, routine health and biobank). All work packages (WP) interact and are ongoing. WP1 uses co-production and engagement methods with communities, decision-makers and researchers to continuously set (changing) research priorities and will, longer-term, co-produce interventions to aid the City's recovery. In WP2 repeated quantitative surveys will be administered during lockdown (April-June 2020), with three repeat surveys until 12 months post-lockdown with an ethnically diverse pool of BiB participants (parents, children aged 9-13 years, pregnant women: total sample pool N=7,652, N=5,154, N=1,800). A range of health, social, economic and education outcomes will be assessed. In WP3 priority topics identified in WP1 and WP2 will be explored qualitatively. Initial priority topics include children's mental wellbeing, health beliefs and the peri/post-natal period. Feedback loops will ensure findings are fed directly to decision-makers and communities (via WP1) to enable co-production of acceptable interventions and identify future priority topic areas. Findings will be used to aid development of local and national policy to support recovery from the pandemic and minimise health inequalities., Competing Interests: Competing interests: D.A. Lawlor has received research support from several national and international government and charity funders, as well as Roche Diagnostics and Medtronic Ltd for research unrelated to this protocol paper. No competing interests were disclosed by other authors., (Copyright: © 2020 McEachan RRC et al.)