Community Partnership to Co-Develop an Intervention to Promote Equitable Uptake of the COVID-19 Vaccine Among Pediatric Populations.

Objective: To describe the process of engaging community, caregiver, and youth partners in codeveloping an intervention to promote equitable uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in non-Hispanic Black (Black) and Hispanic youth who experience higher rates of COVID-19 transmission, morbidity, and mortality but were less likely to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Methods: A team of 11 Black and Hispanic community partners was assembled to codevelop intervention strategies with our interdisciplinary research team. We used a mixed-methods crowdsourcing approach with Black and Hispanic youth (n=15) and caregivers of Black and Hispanic youth (n=20) who had not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, recruited from primary care clinics, to elicit perspectives on the acceptability of these intervention strategies.
Results: We codeveloped five strategies: (1) community-tailored handouts and posters, (2) videos featuring local youth, (3) family-centered language to offer vaccines in the primary care clinic, (4) communication-skills training for primary care providers, and (5) use of community health workers to counsel families about the vaccine. The majority (56-96.9%) of youth and caregivers rated each of these strategies as acceptable, especially because they addressed common concerns and facilitated shared decision-making.
Conclusions: Engaging community and family partners led to the co-development of culturally- and locally-tailored strategies to promote dialogue and shared decision-making about the COVID-19 vaccine. This process can be used to codevelop interventions to address other forms of public health disparities.
Policy Implications: Intervention strategies that promote dialogues with trusted healthcare providers and support shared decision-making are acceptable strategies to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake among youth from historically underserved communities. Stakeholder-engaged methods may also help in the development of interventions to address other forms of health disparities.
(2024 The journal and its content is copyrighted by the Delaware Academy of Medicine / Delaware Public Health Association (Academy/DPHA).)