Community-based organization perspectives on participating in state-wide community canvassing program aimed to reduce COVID-19 vaccine disparities in California

BMC Public Health

Research

David Santillan¹  Shelli Jackson¹  Alana Troutt²  Savanna L. Carson³  Gloria Kim³  Dale Slaughter³  Keith C. Norris³  Stefanie D. Vassar³  Arleen F. Brown⁴  Lisa N. Mansfield⁵  Nisha Sunku⁶ 

[1] Blue Phoenix Strategies, Falls Church, VA, USA;California Government Operations Agency, State of California, Sacramento, CA, USA;San Francisco Health Plan, San Francisco, California, United States;Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA;Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA;Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, CA, USA;Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA;School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 27599, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, CA, USA;

关键词: COVID-19;    COVID-19 vaccination;    Health disparities;    Health equity;    Community-engaged research;    Race/ethnicity;    Public health;    Community health;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-023-16210-9

 received in 2023-04-28, accepted in 2023-06-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundInequities in COVID-19 vaccine accessibility and reliable COVID-related information disproportionately affected marginalized racial and ethnic communities in the U.S. The Get Out the Vaccine (GOTVax) program, an innovative statewide government-funded COVID-19 vaccine canvassing program in California, aimed to reduce structural barriers to COVID-19 vaccination in high-risk communities with low vaccination rates. GOTVax consisted of a community-academic-government partnership with 34 local trusted community-based organizations’ (CBOs) to conduct COVID-19 vaccine outreach, education, and vaccine registration. The purpose of this qualitative evaluation study was to explore the barriers and facilitators of using local CBOs to deploy a geographically, racially, and ethnically diverse state-wide COVID-19 vaccine outreach program.MethodsSemi-structured online interviews were conducted with participating GOTVax CBO leaders from November 2021 to January 2022. Transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsThirty-one of 34 CBOs participated (91% response rate). Identified themes encompassed both facilitators and barriers to program participation. Key facilitators included leveraging trust through recognized entities; promoting empathetic, tailored outreach; and flexibility of milestone-based CBO funding contracts for rapid program implementation. Barriers included navigating community sociopolitical, geographic, and cultural factors; managing canvassers’ safety; desiring metrics for self-evaluation of outreach success; mitigating canvassing technology challenges; and concerns of program infrastructure initially limiting outreach. CBOs problem-solved barriers with academic and government partners.ConclusionsBetween May and December 2021, the GOTVax program reached over 2 million California residents and registered over 60,000 residents for COVID-19 vaccination. Public health campaigns may improve benefits from leveraging the expertise of community-trusted CBOs and universities by providing flexible infrastructure and funding, allowing CBOs to seamlessly tailor outreach most applicable to local minoritized communities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

Fig. 6

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