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Project highlight: Vaccine education in communities

3 people show their arms have bandaids after getting vaccines.

When a research program at the University of Florida (UF) saw a need for improved access for vaccines and vaccine education, the PANDEMIC and OCOH* programs were born.

 

These programs are powered by UF with help from local community health workers (CHWs) and other partners, including HLM and university extension programs in Florida, Missouri, Minnesota, New York, California, Texas, and Kentucky. This is a really big team, doing really big things!

 

*PANDEMIC (Program to Alleviate National Disparities in Ethnic and Minority Immunizations in the Community) and OCOH (Our Community Our Health).

The need (vaccine education)

Part of the project was equipping CHWs with engaging, tailored, easy-to-understand vaccine education materials to use with community members in their everyday work. That’s where we came in! Our partnership includes developing these materials in print and on the web.

 

Our approach

To create these materials, we needed to:

  • Connect with CHWs to better understand their needs and the needs of people in their communities  

  • Understand how viruses and vaccines work, and the CDC recommendations

  • Apply health and risk communication best practices and theories

  • Develop content and materials, including factsheets, videos, social media, and web content

1 of the materials HLM created for the PANDEMIC project about the COVID-19 virus variants, and how to stay safe.

 

The highlights

As of today, we’ve created over 500 materials about viruses, vaccines, living in a post-COVID world, and mental health topics for community members, including:

  • Educational factsheets, translated to up to 10 languages

  • Videos

  • Social media messages

  • Door hangers

  • Event flyers

PANDEMIC project by the numbers: Over 500 materials, 10 languages, 3 years.

You can see our work here:



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