"A Victim of Our Own Success:" Testing Jenny's First Sleepover's Dark Satire to Improve Attitudes Toward Childhood Vaccination.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantially lower uptake of childhood vaccinations in the U.S. As vaccination rates struggle to rebound, childhood vaccine hesitancy continues to grow. Addressing vaccine disinformation and increasing catch-up vaccination is an urgent public health priority. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of "Jenny's First Sleepover," a darkly humorous satirical book about childhood vaccinations, to influence attitudes of vaccine hesitant parents. This study implemented a randomized pretest - posttest experimental design using a web-based survey with one intervention and one control. "Jenny's First Sleepover" improved attitudes toward vaccination among vaccine hesitant parents. Negative emotions were an important mediator of attitudes toward vaccinations. Findings identify mechanisms that increase effectiveness of satirical approaches, including the presentation of novel information about serious vaccine-preventable diseases with a dark narrative twist. Health communicators may consider a darkly humorous satirical approach to improve attitudes toward childhood vaccination among vaccine hesitant parents.

Using a Community Engagement Approach to Enhance Contraception Awareness in Rural Western North Carolina.

BACKGROUND Unintended pregnancy rates remain higher than the national average in North Carolina. Although long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) use has reduced rates of unintended pregnancy, this contraceptive method is widely underused, often due to low community awareness. Boot Camp Translation is a community engagement process that promotes community awareness of evidence-based medical recommendations by designing culturally meaningful messages.METHODS We tested the feasibility of the Boot Camp Translation process to expand awareness about LARC in 2 rural Western North Carolina counties. After our intervention, we conducted surveys at 4 local clinics, asking patients if and where they saw LARC messages.RESULTS The recruited community members had a participation rate of 93% throughout the intervention. A local nurse practitioner, health department nursing supervisor, health educator, and pre-medical student collaborated with local community members to disseminate culturally meaningful messages about LARC through social media, a website, promotional items, posters, and sexual education talks at local schools. Among women surveyed, 48.9% saw LARC campaign messages and of those, 57% saw messages through social media posts. Post-intervention, 6 local schools implemented a comprehensive sexual education curriculum.LIMITATIONS Our pilot project was not designed to quantitatively assess the community reception to our intervention, our intervention's impact on community knowledge about LARC methods, or changes in contraception practices.CONCLUSIONS We have demonstrated the feasibility of implementing Boot Camp Translation as a tool to enhance public awareness of contraception. This community engagement method underscores the benefit of empowering community members in public health projects.

Preparing for A COVID-19 Vaccine: A Mixed Methods Study of Vaccine Hesitant Parents.

This study investigated vaccine acceptance of putative COVID-19 vaccines among a national sample of vaccine hesitant parents. Vaccine hesitancy and politicization of vaccine development has led to a pronounced distrust of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. A total of 1,381 vaccine-hesitant parents participated in this study. Participants indicated a general unwillingness to vaccinate their children (M = 3.55, SD = 2.13) and themselves (M = 3.58, SD = 2.16) when a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available. More educated parents were more likely to plan to vaccinate themselves [F(5, 533) = 9.93, p < .05] and their children [F(5, 533) = 10.278, p < .05]. Understanding vaccine hesitant parents offers crucial insights as a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available for the general public and as we wait for a vaccine to be approved for pediatric use.