Q&A
Strategies for building vaccine trust and community outreach
1:29:14
ยท
121 sec
Dr. Michelle Morse discusses strategies for rebuilding trust in vaccines and conducting effective community outreach in the face of misinformation and distrust.
- Emphasizes the importance of providing accurate information through trusted community messengers
- Highlights the success of the public health core program during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Stresses the need for continued investments and partnerships with community-based organizations
Dr. Michelle Morse
1:29:14
Thank you for that question.
1:29:16
We have our work cut out for us.
1:29:18
I agree with you, and I do agree also that since the COVID pandemic in particular, there have been a lot more concerns and questions about vaccination, unfortunately.
1:29:30
Misinformation and disinformation is a part of the reason that that trust in you know health professionals, doctors, public health has eroded.
1:29:41
And so part of our charge is to make sure that all of our communities have accurate information and that the messengers for that information are people that they trust.
1:29:53
Now we were able to do that somewhat successfully during COVID because we made large investments.
1:29:58
The one example I want to share is our public health core program, which is in partnership with health hospitals where at the height of the pandemic, the COVID pandemic, we invested a hundred million dollars across a hundred community based organizations and they focused their efforts on vaccination, information sharing, town halls, community events, giving out free masks, free test kits, walking people to vaccination sites, etcetera, and we were able to get the vaccination rate for black and Hispanic New Yorkers up across the city and also in the neighborhoods that had lower vaccination rates.
1:30:35
Were able to get those vaccination rates raised.
1:30:37
But it required a lot of work.
1:30:39
It required us partnering with community based organizations.
1:30:43
It required us making big investments across government, and it required us focusing where the data tells us to focus.
1:30:50
That is focusing in the communities that experienced unfair and disproportionate impact to make sure that they had the resources that they deserved with the messengers, the language, and the way in which they wanted to receive that information.
1:31:04
But that was a big victory, so this is something that we can overcome.
1:31:09
And our expectation of course is that those kinds of efforts will continue in order to get our vaccination rates higher.