Empowering Youth Vaccine Ambassadors to Promote COVID-19 Vaccination in Local Communities: A 7-Step Approach.

Despite the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for youth since 2021, vaccine hesitancy has resulted in suboptimal uptake. Public health campaigns that empower local youth ambassadors as trusted messengers who share their personal narratives related to getting vaccinated hold promise for promoting COVID-19 vaccination. We used a seven-step approach to develop, implement, and evaluate a youth-led ambassador campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccine uptake in communities experiencing COVID-19 disparities in Worcester, MA. The seven steps included (1) engaging with key partners; (2) determining a community of focus; (3) identifying trusted sources; (4) determining campaign components; (5) training the vaccine ambassadors; (6) disseminating the campaign; and (7) evaluating the campaign. We trained nine youth as vaccine ambassadors. Ambassadors were guided through self-reflection of motivations for COVID-19 vaccination and the resulting personal narratives became the campaign messaging. English/Spanish vaccine messages developed by youth ambassadors were disseminated through social media platforms (n = 3), radio (n = 2), local TV (n = 2), flyers (n = 2,086), posters (n = 386), billboards (n = 10), and local bus ads (n = 40). Qualitative youth feedback indicate participation in the campaign was a positive and empowering experience which reinforces the importance of engaging youth in public health messaging. Youth empowerment through personal narratives (and storytelling) holds promise for future public health campaigns.

A Citywide Approach to SARS-CoV2 Testing.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused more than 30 million infections in the United States between March 2020 and April 2021. In response to systemic disparities in SARS-CoV2 testing and COVID-19 infections, health systems, city leaders and community stakeholders in Worcester, Massachusetts created a citywide Equity Task Force with a specific goal of making low-barrier testing available to individuals throughout our community. Within months, the state of Massachusetts announced the Stop the Spread campaign, a state-funded testing venture. With this funding, and through our community-based approach, our team tested more than 48,363 individuals between August 3, 2020 and February 28, 2021. Through multiple PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles, we optimized our process to test close to 300 individuals per hour. Our positivity rate ranged from 1.5% with our initial testing events to a high of 13.4% on January 6, 2021. During the challenges of providing traditional inpatient and ambulatory care during the pandemic, our health system, city leadership, and community advocacy groups united to broaden the scope of care to include widespread, population-based SARS-CoV2 testing. We anticipate that the lessons learned in conducting this testing campaign can be applied to further surges of SARS-CoV2, international environments, and future respiratory disease pandemics.