Virtual town halls addressing vaccine hesitancy among racial and ethnic minorities: Preliminary findings

Abstract

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic remains a public health priority, and vaccination is important for ending the pandemic. Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionally affected by COVID-19 yet report high levels of vaccination hesitancy. ObjectiveWe conducted virtual town halls to address vaccine hesitancy among racial and ethnic minorities in South Florida. MethodsOur approach used social influence and persuasion models. In a formative phase, we gathered meeting preferences from our communities and developed and tested our approach. In an implementation phase, we conducted 6 virtual town halls in partnership with 6 different minority-focused community-based organizations. ResultsThe town halls reached 379 participants (mean age 36.6 years; 63.9% female, 33.5% male, 0.3% nonbinary; 55.8% racial or ethnic minority). Of these 379 participants, 69 completed both polls who were unvaccinated at the time. Among these nonvaccinated participants, at the prepoll, 58% reported a high likelihood of seeking vaccination, rising to 72.5% at the exit poll, which was a statistically significant change. Unvaccinated non-hesitant and hesitant groups were compared on trusted information sources and reasons and barriers for vaccination. Nonhesitant participants reported greater trust in the COVID-19 Task Force (97.3% vs. 83.3%) as a source of vaccine information than did hesitant participants. Nonhesitant participants were statistically significant more likely to endorse family safety (82.5% vs. 63.2%), community safety (72.5% vs. 26.3%), personal safety (85% vs. 36.8%), and wanting to return to a normal life (70% vs. 31.6%) as reasons for vaccination than were hesitant participants. Hesitant participants were statistically significant more likely to endorse concerns about vaccine safety (63.2% vs. 17.5%) as barrier to vaccination than were nonhesitant participants. Qualitative data revealed high consumer satisfaction with the town halls. ConclusionThis study supports the feasibility, acceptability, and potential impact of virtual town halls for addressing vaccine hesitancy among racial or ethnic minorities; however, our approach was resource intensive, required an extensive community-university collaborative infrastructure, and yielded a small effect.