The Power of Partnership: NYCEAL Collaborations With Health Agencies and Mobile Vaccination Vans.

New York City experienced a high COVID-19 burden and striking disparities among racial and ethnic minoritized groups. The New York Community Engagement Alliance Against COVID-19 Disparities (NYCEAL) collaborated with health agencies and clinical providers to increase and facilitate COVID-19 vaccinations across New York City. NYCEAL partners and their network of hundreds of community health workers delivered vaccine education, fostered community trust, and supported vaccine uptake among low-income, limited‒English-proficient, and racial and ethnic minoritized communities. With funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the objective of NYCEAL was to reduce COVID-19 disparities by increasing vaccine uptake and promoting trust in science. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S1):S92-S95. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307455).

What matters to us: Bridging research and accurate information through dialogue (BRAID) to build community trust and cultivate vaccine confidence.

Despite higher rates of SARS-CoV-2 infections and mortality, vaccine uptake in Black and Latinx populations remained disproportionately low, including in the Bronx, New York. In response, we used the Bridging Research, Accurate Information, and Dialogue (BRAID) model to elicit community members' COViD-19 vaccine-related perspectives and informational needs and inform strategies to improve vaccine acceptance. We conducted a longitudinal qualitative study over 13 months (May 2021-June 2022), with 25 community experts from the Bronx including community health workers, and representatives from community-based organizations. Each expert participated in 1-5 of the 12 conversation circles conducted via Zoom. Clinicians and scientists, attended circles to provide additional information in content areas identified by the experts. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the conversations. Five overarching themes, related to trust, emerged: (1) disparate and unjust treatment from institutions; (2) the impact of rapidly changing COVID messages in the lay press (a different story every day); (3) influencers of vaccine intention; (4) strategies to build community trust; and (5) what matters to community experts [us]. Our findings highlighted the influence of factors, such as health communication, on trust (or lack thereof) and vaccine intention. They also reinforce that creating safe spaces for dialogue and listening and responding to community concerns in real time are effective trust-building strategies. The BRAID model fostered open discussion about the factors that influence vaccine uptake and empowered participants to share accurate information with their community. Our experience suggests that the model can be adapted to address many public health issues.