Empowering Worcester Youth to Support COVID-19 Vaccination: #PostVaxLife, A Public Health Media Camp

Stephenie C. Lemon, PhD Matilde “Mattie” Castiel, MD

VaCCInatIng yOuth anD famIlIes In WOrCester fOr COVID-19 is a vital part of the public health response to the pandemic. According to the City of Worcester Division of Public Health surveillance using new census population totals (1), 33% of children 5-11 years, 62% of youth 12-15 years, and 53% of youth 16-19 years are fully vaccinated with two doses. Rates for boosters, which are now available to everyone aged 5 and up, remain sub-optimal.

Since the COVID-19 vaccines were approved, Worcester’s Office of Health and Human Services and the Division of Public Health have worked tirelessly to provide access to the vaccines through Vaccine Equity Clinics held in trusted and accessible community locations, such as the Worcester Public Library, community agencies, places of worship, and stores. The UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center (PRC), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at UMass Chan Medical School, has partnered to support these Vaccine Equity Clinics through a public health media campaign promoting COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake among youth and families.

The Worcester Youth Vaccine Ambassador public health media campaign is a local initiative to promote vaccine confidence among youth and families. The campaign is guided by social cognitive theory (2) and youth empowerment (3) theories that suggest that people are influenced to change their health behavior by hearing stories and motivations of people who are influential to them. #PostVaxLife promotes vaccination through youth and families sharing personal motivations, with an emphasis on addressing racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccinations through diverse voices.

UMass Worcester PRC and Worcester’s Office of Health and Human Services facilitated the campaign, but it was led by, and for, youth. The Youth Vaccine Ambassadors were influential youth living in Worcester. The goal was to amplify the voices of our talented youth by giving them a platform to share why they got vaccinated. These motivations formed the foundation of the vaccination promotion media campaign to encourage and inspire others to get vaccinated. Together, these youth created the #PostVaxLife hashtag and logo and used them to share vaccine information on social media as a way to build vaccine confidence in the city of Worcester. This hashtag, #PostVaxLife, was meaningful to the youth, highlighting their desire to get back to the things that they enjoy doing again.

There were different reasons why youth decided to get vaccinated. Isabella, one youth ambassador said, “I got vaccinated to protect my friends and family. After getting vaccinated I was able to enjoy my life better and feel safer.”

In the campaign materials, youth ambassador Jean shared, “I’m vaccinated for my mom, for my dad, for my grandmother...for myself. I love them, so I want to protect them. Protect yours.”

When asked why they got vaccinated, another one of our local youth vaccine ambassadors, Morgan, said, “I got the vaccine because my mom and little brother suffer from autoimmune diseases. I wanted to keep me and my family healthy, so far, we have been. #PostVaxLife.”

This public health campaign highlights Worcester’s goal to increase youth vaccinations by using youth as trusted messengers to share their own motivational stories and through those narratives and storytelling.

The campaign created video public service announcements (PSAs), posters, and fliers featuring the Youth Vaccine Ambassadors. Each public health message featured the ambassador’s story, locations to access the COVID-19 vaccine, and websites with more information. These vaccine confidence messages were shared and distributed through three social media platforms, mass media outlets (TV and radio), flyers, posters, billboards, and Worcester Regional Transit Authority bus ads. In partnership with youth-serving agencies, the Youth Vaccine Ambassadors also promoted Vaccine Equity Clinics held at trusted agencies to increase the access of the vaccine for local youth and families.

To complement the campaign materials, our team created COVID-19 vaccine fact sheets based upon questions that local families have asked, sought endorsement by local health systems, and translated them into nine languages. Materials associated with this public health campaign, including PSAs and COVID-19 vaccine fact sheets are available at the UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center website (www.umassmedmed.edu).

To evaluate the impact of participating in the campaign on youths themselves, we conducted interviews with three participants, who all reported very positive experiences. One youth ambassador said, “At the first vaccine event, nobody wanted to get the vaccine but after I shared my vaccine story and gave them my reason why, I saw at least six people get up and go to get their vaccine. Being an outlet in that way was super cool.”

When asked if they’d participate in a campaign like this again, one youth said, “Of course, for sure. I definitely would. I’m really glad I was a part of this push.”

Following the success of sharing personal vaccine stories, our team expanded the model to feature family voices. Through a collaboration with Girls Inc. of Worcester, local families created PSAs, billboards, and bus signs, featuring their own motivations to reach a #PostVaxLife by being vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine. Our work is now expanding to support local pediatricians in their efforts to talk to vaccine-hesitant parents, and family vaccine ambassadors to talk with friends and family in neighborhoods with low vaccination rates. As the pandemic continues and youth vaccine rates lag, creating new strategies to integrate youth into these efforts will continue to be vital.

This work is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is a product of a Prevention Research Center (Agreement #6U48DP006381-03-01). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. +

REFERENCES:

1. City of Worcester Division of Public Health. 5/27/2022. Worcester Weekly Vaccination Report.

2. Bandura A. Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: WH Freeman and Company; 1997.

3. Zimmerman MA. Empowerment theory. In: Rappaport J, Seidman E, eds. Handbook of Community Psychology. U.S.: Springer; 2000:43-63.

Stephenie C. Lemon, PhD, is Director of the UMass Worcester Prevention Research Center, and professor and chief of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. Email: Stephenie.lemon@umassmed.edu.

Matilde “Mattie” Castiel, MD, is commissioner of Health and Human services for the City of Worcester and associate professor of medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. Email: CastielM@ worcesterma.gov.