Project Story

In February 2021, the CDC launched a national initiative to promote confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine. Americares was selected as the only organization to work with health care personnel in free and charitable clinics. The Vaccinate with Confidence project was designed to understand vaccine hesitancy among health care personnel and to design materials and learning opportunities to help address those hesitancies and build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine.

Americares used a human-centered approach in its project design to ensure authentic stakeholder engagement – and to ensure project innovations accounted for the culture, context and constraints of free and charitable clinics. Americares partnered with the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics and free and charitable clinic state associations to support the development, adaptation, and distribution of materials in the project. These partners served as a direct link with clinics and health care personnel. This approach led to a deeper understanding of health care personnel needs and day-to-day challenges in the safety net sector, and it also ensured trusted messengers were utilized at all professional levels to disseminate project information and materials.

Over the course of the project, Americares conducted three surveys of more than 4,000 health care personnel working in 440 free and charitable clinics across the United States and federally qualified health centers in Puerto Rico to understand their confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine their knowledge about the vaccine and their ability to talk about the vaccine with their patients. From the data collected in these surveys, we learned:

• Health care personnel who felt well-informed about the access, benefits, effectiveness, and development of the COVID-19 vaccine were 10 times more likely to get vaccinated themselves and 4 times more likely to recommend the vaccine to their patients;
• Vaccinated health care personnel were 2.5 times more likely to recommend vaccine to their patients than unvaccinated health care personnel; and
• Changes in vaccine guidelines negatively affected health care personnel confidence, signifying the necessity for continuous education and communication with health care personnel.

The Americares project team used this information and leveraged consultations and message testing with health care personnel from 24 free and charitable clinics distributed across the United States to better understand local barriers to vaccine confidence and create materials that speak to local culture and values. These tailored resources give health care providers and staff the latest information on  COVID-19 Vaccine Information and Guidelines, How to Talk About Vaccines or Posters, Handouts and Social Media, to help health care personnel navigate misinformation and common questions about COVID-19 and its vaccines.