The Vaccine Communication Demands on Community-Based Workforces.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are experiencing some of the highest demand in years for a wide spectrum of health and social services. Their client-facing employees have taken on a new, challenging role as a sought-after source of COVID-19 vaccine information and guidance. These workforces operating on the frontlines, do their best to meet the increased need for services and information, often without additional resources or training to do so. The most effective immediate response to this challenge is a comprehensive communication support system working in tandem with CBOs. Our three organizations, the New York Vaccine Literacy Campaign at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, Hunger Free NYC, and Health Leads, have collaborated in key short-term approaches to meet these needs. We outline these processes and anticipated outcomes and offer lessons learned to advocate for long-term structural changes needed to increase community-level communication support.

What we can learn from U.S. food policy response to crises of the last 20 years - Lessons for the COVID-19 era: A scoping review.

The U.S government has historically responded to human, natural and economic disruptions that threaten food insecurity by modifying federally-funded public food programs. The authors conducted a scoping review to identify and summarize available evidence on the efforts of a 20-year period to modify food benefit programs in response to emergencies; describe how food benefit programs interact to support vulnerable populations; identify key facilitators and barriers to effective implementation and impact; and assess relevance of evidence to COVID-19 pandemic. Scoping reviews address broad research questions aimed at mapping key concepts and available evidence in a defined area, and include academic and gray literature and reports from governments and NGOs. This review followed the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews and included a three-stage search strategy. Studies were independently screened for eligibility by two researchers with multiple rounds of review. A content based charting method was used to summarize evidence. More than 2289 documents were identified and screened. After review, 44 documents were analyzed. Only 18% of documents reported program or policy impact data. Additionally, review of 149 policy records from State by State FNS Disaster Assistance Data from Oct 2016-Dec 2020 assessed 96 state specific food policy responses to 72 distinct events. Analysis revealed 53 distinct packages of food policy modifications used in response to crises. This scoping review demonstrates that few studies document the impact on food insecurity of food benefit modifications in response to crises. Most documents present output level details about costs and total number of individuals served. Many documents describe food policy response to crises without providing evaluation of response. Analysis points to SNAP and Child Nutrition Programs as most commonly modified food benefit programs in the wake of U.S. crises. The review concludes with a number of considerations for continued response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.