Pursuing Collaboration To Further Vaccine Acceptance, Immunization Advocates New Activities
Vaccine Acceptance & Demand Grant Partners
Early this November, Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Vaccine Acceptance & Demand initiative announced funding for 10 grant partners awarded through the 2021 Social and Behavioral Research Grants Program. The selected research projects will take place within eight countries in the Global South and investigate social and behavioral approaches to inform suitable solutions that support acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations. In collaboration with Sabin, each grant partner will compile solution-oriented outputs including policy briefs and recommendations, intervention design and implementation strategy agendas, case study evaluations, messaging toolkits and peer-reviewed published manuscript (optional; other deliverables can be developed in lieu of or in addition to this) that will be disseminated to help further global immunization.
Get to know all 10 of our research grant partners in this blog series examining the selected research projects based on one of three themes: vaccine equity, marginalized communities, social media/messaging.
Immunization Advocates Partners
Sabin partners with organizations worldwide to educate journalists and health workers, advocate for vaccines and immunizations, and deepen skillsets of immunization reporting. Some of Sabin’s Immunization Advocates program partners include Agência Bori and Instituto Questão de Ciência, AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, International Pediatric Association, International Women’s Media Foundation, Internews, Nursing Now Challenge and Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Learn more in-depth details about our partners
Insights Dialogue
The second Insights Dialogue live engagement, Connecting Through Emotional Appeals, was held on December 9 to explore how social media messaging has been used to address vaccine confidence and what factors create more persuasive messaging. Communications and global health experts shared their experience developing messaging and how they leveraged peer-reviewed literature, knowledge of local context and extensive online testing to improve messaging for greater behavior change impact. More information and the recording can be found here. This event was hosted by the Sabin Vaccine Institute and the Bay Area Global Health Alliance, partners of the Alliance for Advancing Health Online.
Boost Community Podcast Teaser
The Bright Spots initiative by Sabin’s Boost Community is a global storytelling project that seeks to uncover stories of grassroots-driven, incremental innovation in routine immunization service delivery at the sub-national level. Immunization programs face numerous challenges related to maintaining adequate vaccine coverage and must overcome immense challenges to sustain and improve vaccine acceptance and demand. In upcoming episodes of the podcast, Rose Nakame and Mpho Shelile, winners of the storytelling challenge by Immunization Advocates & Nursing Now Challenge, will share their stories related to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, demand, rollout and community engagement. Listen now to featured experts navigate the frontlines of COVID-19 with the Boost Community.
In early November, these health workers shared their experiences at the ICN Congress related to the impact of COVID-19. As we aim to influence discussions and decisions on vaccine equity by engaging and learning more from nurses and midwives, we encourage you to watch session SS4 of the ICN Congress conference and share your stories on routine immunization and vaccine acceptance and demand with us on Twitter using #VaccinesWork and #HealthWorkersCount.
Intergovernmental Negotiating Board Established
The World Health Assembly Special Session (WHASS) took place on December 1, 2021. Member states of the WHO established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Board (INB) that will work to bolster pandemic preparedness, prevention and response. This international agreement created by the INB will define approaches to addressing health emergencies and will need to be confirmed by a two-thirds vote of the member states for member states to choose to adopt this agreement in their constitution.
Thomas Reuters Foundation Participants Contributions
Sabin partners with the Thomas Reuters Foundation (TRF) to educate and train journalists and media professionals in Gavi transition countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Training includes online educational sessions on vaccine and immunization fundamentals, expert speakers and hands-on health reporting workshops led by Thomson Reuters Foundation educators. Below are some of the contributions that these individuals have published:
- Coronavirus. Impactos a futuro de las vacunas contra Covid-19 (Coronavirus. Future impacts of Covid-19 vaccines) – María Luisa Santillán, Portal Ciencia Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México (México)
- Líderes de familia, clave que no se toma en cuenta para mejorar la vacunación (Family leaders, key that is not taken into account to improve vaccinations) – Verónica Zapana, Pagina Siete newspaper (Bolivia)
- Honduras y su deuda pendiente con la otra vacunación (Honduras and its outstanding debt with the other vaccine) – Lesly Banegas Frazer, Radio Progreso (Honduras)
