Table 1.
Key Priority Areas and Specific Interventions Implemented to Improve Vaccine Acceptance Among Staff
| Key Priority Areas for Supporting Center Leaders |
| • Be attentive to cultural differences among staff that may influence viewpoints and beliefs about vaccines. |
| • Host conversations to actively listen to the unique needs of staff. |
| • Communicate with compassion and empathy, respecting points of view that are different from their own. |
| • Become familiar with historical and cultural events that have generated distrust of government and health care among communities of color. |
| • Identify key peer influencers on each shift within centers who can help address questions and concerns. |
| • Identify respected local religious, spiritual, and community leaders to help facilitate culturally sensitive conversations. |
| • Provide multilingual educational resources for employees to share with their own families and invite employees’ family members to join information sessions. |
| • Publicly recognize and highlight vaccine experiences of trusted coworkers and community leaders via social media and center-specific communications. |
| Implementation |
| • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee representatives were added as copanelists for the “Ask the Doc” information sessions in order to help facilitate culturally sensitive discussions. Where possible, multilingual physicians were also leveraged. |
| • “Ask the Doc” sessions were hosted throughout the day and night, enabling employees to log in from home and invite members of their family to participate, because the DEI Committee emphasized that family and friends can be influential in black and Hispanic individuals’ decisions related to vaccine acceptance. |
| • DEI Committee members were involved in the #ThisIsOurShot education and social media campaign. This campaign highlighted employees’ personal journeys toward vaccine acceptance and gave a voice to the unique decision-making process of individuals from diverse backgrounds. |
| • A “Vaccine Acceptance” page was added within the company’s DEI intranet site. This page, which promotes resources from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Black Coalition Against COVID, includes a link to a library of more than 50 videos where black and Hispanic health care professionals provide factual information about the COVID-19 vaccines in both English and Spanish. Educational information from the CDC was also made available in multiple other languages. |
| • Nursing leaders from racially diverse backgrounds visited centers to offer small group discussions and one-on-one conversations with individuals to answer questions on culturally sensitive topics that impact decision making related to vaccine acceptance. |