Listening to Voices from African American Communities in the Southern States about COVID-19 Vaccine Information and Communication: A Qualitative Study

  1. Ran Zhang
  2. Shan Qiao
  3. Brooke W. McKeever
  4. Bankole Olatosi
  5. Xiaoming Li

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Abstract

The high uptake of COVID-19 vaccines is one of the most promising measures to control the pandemic. However, some African American (AA) communities exhibit vaccination hesitancy due to mis- or disinformation. It is important to understand the challenges in accessing reliable COVID-19 vaccine information and to develop feasible health communication interventions based on voices from AA communities. We conducted 2 focus group discussions (FGDs) among 18 community stakeholders recruited from 3 counties in South Carolina on 8 October and 29 October 2021. The FGDs were conducted online via Zoom meetings. The FGD data were managed and thematically analyzed using NVivo 12. Participants worked primarily in colleges, churches, and health agencies. We found that the challenges of accessing reliable vaccine information in AA communities primarily included structural barriers, information barriers, and a lack of trust. Community stakeholders recommended recruiting trusted messengers, using social events to reach target populations, and conducting health communication campaigns through open dialogue among stakeholders. Health communication interventions directed at COVID-19 vaccine uptake should be grounded in ongoing community engagement, trust-building activities, and transparent communication about vaccine development. Tailoring health communication interventions to different groups may help reduce misinformation spread and thus promote vaccination in AA communities in the southern states.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.3390/vaccines10071046
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.03.21.22272728: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: Online informed consent was signed by each participant at the beginning of the FGDs.
    IRB: The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of xxxx.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, the current study has limitations. Our strategy of utilizing convenience sampling resulted in more than half of the participants being from colleges, resulting in this study capturing the opinions of community leaders in only a portion of the field. Therefore, future studies could utilize stratified sampling to improve the accuracy and representativeness of the results by reducing sampling bias. Future research also needs to expand to other important stakeholders that play an important role in health communication (e.g., AA associations).

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.03.21.22272728 on medRxiv