5-Step Strategy for COVID-19 Vaccine Access and Outreach

Join Christina Neill Bowen as she details a five-step strategy for COVID-19 vaccine access and outreach.

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(upbeat music)- Welcome to the "No Wrong Door" podcast series brought to you by the Administration for Community Living. In this episode, we'll focus on vaccine access and a five-step strategy to use. This episode highlights how to identify low-access areas, reach people by acquiring lists, finding and training the personnel to do the work, and the importance of partnerships. Our featured host is Christina Neill Bowen, with the "No Wrong Door" Technical Assistance Team.- [Christina Neill Bowen] Once you know the areas to target specifically, the challenge is finding a list of your target population in that area to get in touch with. So consider working with partners who can help provide contacts in those regions.- This podcast highlights why developing a proactive strategy for vaccine outreach and leveraging partnerships, supports the overarching goals of the "No Wrong Door" vision. So now, let's hear from our featured host, Christina Neill Bowen.- [Christina Neill Bowen] I'm gonna walk through five steps to proactive vaccine outreach for ADRC and No Wrong Door Systems. Why do we need to be proactive? Well, as of the date of this recording, which is August of 2021, there's still a hundred million people eligible for the vaccine, unvaccinated. And so, what can we do as ADRC and No Wrong Door Systems to address that and reach the people in our target population? We're going to suggest these five steps for proactive vaccine outreach, and I'm gonna walk through them. Some of the links that I mention are available on the Forumbee site on the TA-Community.com. Number one, the first step you need to do is figure out where are the areas of low access, or hesitancy, or low vaccine confidence in your state or your local area. There are some great resources for this. The HHS We Can Do This website has vaccine hesitancy maps with county level vaccine hesitancy estimates, plus additional facts to help you understand your outreach areas. You can also access county level detail on the social vulnerability index, which is an index that covers various social determinants of health and vaccine coverage. And you can access this through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID data tracker. Additionally, through ACL's partnership with the CDC, ACL can obtain state-specific maps with county-level data on vaccination rates, high and low, and social vulnerability index. If you have interest in seeing your state map and did not already request this during the PAL call, please email nowrongdoor@acl.hhs.gov.- The second step is to obtain lists of people to contact. Once you know the areas to target specifically, the challenge is finding a list of your target population in that area to get in touch with. So consider working with partners who can help provide contacts in those regions. Some suggestions include home delivered meal recipients, Medicaid beneficiaries, voter registration lists, referrals from community-based organizations, health plans, hospitals, primary care doctors, and finally faith-based organizations. Be sure to check out our new resource on expanding outreach and engagement through health care collaboration on the TA-Community site developed by Tim McNeill and his team at Freedman's Health. Step three, find outreach personnel. So how are you going to actually contact people? Are you going to train existing staff, hire contractors or use volunteers? Talk to community partners about the best strategy to use for the particular community you are targeting. Decide how you'll contact these individuals. For example, we feature a DC door knocking campaign on the TA-Community.com. There are also in-home vaccination initiatives, and we have a playbook developed by the state of Ohio for how to organize a home vaccination initiative, also on the TA-Community. You could also join one of the HHS Made to Save campaign phone banking events to learn how to do effective telephone outreach. Step four, train outreach personnel. Train your vaccine outreach workers in the most effective methods to have vaccine confidence discussions. Again, the HHS,"We Can Do This," and the"Made to Save" websites offer great resources, as well as the AD Council. You can find sample call scripts, discussion prompts, and there's information on outreach to various cultural and ethnic groups, and in different languages. And the AD Council actually has video and print ads that are free to use for various target populations. Finally, celebrate your success by tracking results. Step five, celebrate by tracking results and ACL will be collecting data as you know, bimonthly, the first date of collection being due August 6th. But these data will be used to demonstrate the impact of this historic partnership with the Centers for Disease Control. You can also track your progress and celebrate victories along the way as you expand outreach and access to the vaccine.- Thanks to Christina for providing that five step strategy for increasing vaccine access. The resources she mentioned are listed in the description of this podcast. For more information, visit TA-Community.com. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the presenters and do not necessarily reflect the view of ACL or any of its officials.