Empowering Youth Vaccine Ambassadors to Promote COVID-19 Vaccination in Local Communities: A 7-Step Approach.

Despite the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for youth since 2021, vaccine hesitancy has resulted in suboptimal uptake. Public health campaigns that empower local youth ambassadors as trusted messengers who share their personal narratives related to getting vaccinated hold promise for promoting COVID-19 vaccination. We used a seven-step approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a youth-led ambassador campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake in communities experiencing COVID-19 disparities in Worcester, MA.

Development and Beta-Testing of the CONFIDENCE Intervention to Increase Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccination.

Introduction: Innovative strategies are needed to improve pediatric COVID-19 vaccination rates. We describe the process for developing a clinic-based intervention, CONFIDENCE, to improve pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake and present results of our beta-test for feasibility and acceptability.

Method: CONFIDENCE included communication training with providers, a poster campaign, and parent-facing educational materials.

Parental perceptions of the COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-old children: Focus group findings from Worcester Massachusetts.

Vaccine hesitancy is a long-standing public health issue. The present work describes parental perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination for 5- to 11-year-old children, to aid in vaccination efforts. Parents of 5- to 11-year-old children residing in Worcester, Massachusetts, were recruited through community partner outreach to participate in semi-structured focus groups.

Clinician perspectives on pediatric COVID-19 vaccination: A qualitative study in central and western, Massachusetts.

We explored perspectives of clinicians in central and western Massachusetts about efforts to vaccinate pediatric patients against COVID-19 as well as best practices and challenges for vaccine delivery. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 16) with family practice and pediatric clinicians between late October and early December 2021. Our interviews addressed: process for vaccination and vaccine promotion, parental receptivity to COVID-19 vaccination, receptivity to other pediatric vaccines, resources needed to support vaccine promotion, and best practices developed to encourage hesitant parents.