Health equity-oriented design for dissemination: products and impact of rapid community translation for COVID-19 vaccine promotion.

BACKGROUND

Public health messaging often falls short of the needs of underserved and minority communities, missing the mark on translating information that captures cultural, linguistic, or community relevance to influence health behaviors. Rapid community translation (rapid-CT) is an adaptation of the Boot Camp Translational method for community engagement in translating medical evidence into community health promotion messages and interventions. This paper describes the dissemination of materials from a rapid-CT of messages promoting COVID-19 vaccination among children and adults, boosters, and Long COVID messages.

METHODS

This project engaged five disproportionately impacted Colorado communities: urban and rural Latino/a/x, urban Black/African American, rural African immigrant, and urban American Indian/Alaska Native communities to conduct three cycles of about 6 week each of rapid-CT over 2021-2022. Each cycle of rapid-CT was led by 2 trained facilitators, usually one academic and one community partner. The process involved: (1) determining the role of partners and fostering partnerships; (2) describing the innovation, rationale, and evidence; (3) identifying the intended audience, message, timing, and format for dissemination; (4) selecting the communication and distribution channels; (5) identifying barriers and facilitators to dissemination, and (6) evaluating and refining the dissemination process. Dissemination was examined via tracking spreadsheet and impact was examined through surveys (recollection of seeing the materials, attitudes about COVID vaccinations, and vaccine status) and team de-briefing.

RESULTS

We engaged 126 unique community members and 15 facilitators. Within each cycle, rapid-CT communities co-created distinctive campaigns including messages, materials, and dissemination strategies. Each rapid-CT group identified anticipated and actual barriers and facilitators to the dissemination of messages and materials. Each group also demonstrated impact with metrics ranging from views of online videos or marketing materials to distributions of items promoting the message (e.g., 1,000 stickers distributed), although capacity to assess impact was a varied and the changing evidence and related to COVID-19 vaccination presented challenges.

CONCLUSION

Rapid-CT was effective for engaging communities in co-creating distinct messages and communication strategies tailored to their community's needs and populations. Rapid-CT is well-suited to message creation for dynamic public health emergencies. Future use of Rapid-CT should set clear expectations for time commitment of community partner and establish prospective evaluation plans in addition to community-developed plans.