Awareness is a critical factor affecting vaccine uptake(1), especially in rural communities with limited access to vaccine information , such as ethnic minority communities in rural areas (Binh Phuoc, our research province for example), or due to several different challenges like health crises like COVID-19.
After assessing vaccine uptake, and exploring attitudes and perceptions of selected communities related to vaccination ,with the support of local health authorities, we initiated several interactive activities. These included creating leaflets, posters about neonatal and childhood vaccinations, which used the images of local people to get more attraction from the local community . Then, they were distributed through local health workers and community leaders to the most visited locations in the villages to be able to reach most of the people living there. We also created and performed a community play to make vaccine information as accessible and easy to understand as possible.
Dr Nguyen Thanh Ha‘s research shows that working with hard-to-reach communities in rural areas in Vietnam, local healthcare workers and village health workers play a crucial role in promoting and maintaining the community’s vaccination behaviours. However, they need to explain complex issues to community members from different ethnic groups speaking different languages while having limited training in vaccine knowledge or communication skills(2).
In response to these findings, PCE group collaborated with Dak Lak CDC to develop a training curriculum aimed at building the capacity of those local healthcare workers and village health workers . This curriculum also serves as a Train-the-Trainer (TOT) course and guideline to equip district-level and commune-level health staff with sustainable and accessible training materials.
Access the training materials here.
In 2021, recognising the significant danger of the spread of COVID-19 infordemic, OUCRU launched a campaign to combat misinformation. We used social media to disseminate trustworthy, evidence-based, scientifically-backed information about COVID-19 vaccines and encouraged people to get vaccinated when possible.
Look at some social media materials we developed.
Through those interactive methods which were carefully chosen through research and need assessments, we aim to build different models to improve vaccine uptake at communities, especially rural areas and enhance vaccine information awareness among wider public
References:
(1) In 2016 Thomson et al proposed a taxonomy of ‘5-As’ to describe the dimensions of vaccine uptake: access, affordability, awareness, acceptance and activation. Thomson A, Robinson K, Vallée-Tourangeau G. The 5As: a practical taxonomy for the determinants of vaccine uptake. Vaccine 2016;34:1018–24.doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.11.065pmid:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26672676
(2) Read more about the project here
