This guidance document provides basic principles for a spokesperson of any health authority on how to respond to vocal vaccine deniers. The suggestions are based on psychological research on persuasion, on research in public health, communication studies and on WHO risk communication guidelines.
This guide is intended to support national governments developing their national deployment and vaccination plans (NDVPs) for COVID-19 vaccines by outlining the roles, needs and opportunities for community health workers (CHWs) to contribute. This note builds on and is structured to align with the G...uidance on developing a national deployment and vaccination plan for COVID-19 vaccines. By providing CHW-relevant considerations for the VIRAT Tool, this document aims to support national governments in developing robust NDVPs for introducing COVID-19 vaccine(s) that leverage all the community-based deployment, implementation and monitoring tools at their disposal.
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Introduction: Considering the global prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a vaccine is being developed to control the disease as a complementary solution to hygiene measures—and better, in social terms, than social distancing. Given that a vaccine will eventually be produced, informa...tion will be needed to support a potential campaign to promote vaccination.
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the variables affecting the likelihood of refusal and indecision toward a vaccine against COVID-19 and to determine the acceptance of the vaccine for different scenarios of effectiveness and side effects.
Materials and Methods: A multinomial logistic regression method based on the Health Belief Model was used to estimate the current methodology, using data obtained by an online anonymous survey of 370 respondents in Chile.
Results: The results indicate that 49% of respondents were willing to be vaccinated, with 28% undecided or 77% of individuals who would potentially be willing to be inoculated. The main variables that explained the probability of rejection or indecision were associated with the severity of COVID-19, such as, the side effects and effectiveness of the vaccine; perceived benefits, including immunity, decreased fear of contagion, and the protection of oneself and the environment; action signals, such as, responses from ones' family and the government, available information, and specialists' recommendations; and susceptibility, including the contagion rate per 1,000 inhabitants and relatives with COVID-19, among others. Our analysis of hypothetical vaccine scenarios revealed that individuals preferred less risky vaccines in terms of fewer side effects, rather than effectiveness. Additionally, the variables that explained the indecision toward or rejection of a potential COVID-19 vaccine could be used in designing public health policies.
Conclusions: We discovered that it is necessary to formulate specific, differentiated vaccination-promotion strategies for the anti-vaccine and undecided groups based on the factors that explain the probability of individuals refusing or expressing hesitation toward vaccination.
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Analysis of fake news disseminated during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil
3 February 2021
Vaccine- and vaccination-related crises require a communication response that is different from the communication strategies used to promote the benefits and importance of vaccines in general. This document presents the technical guidance needed to develop a communication plan that ...is appropriate for managing crises related to vaccine safety. This guidance will be useful for managers in the areas of immunization and vaccine and vaccination safety. They will also help preparedness and response teams working in safety crises to optimize their communication plans in order to regain, maintain, or strengthen trust in vaccines, vaccination, and immunization programs in general.
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3 February 2021
Las crisis relacionadas con las vacunas y la vacunación requieren una respuesta de comunicación diferente a las estrategias comunicacionales para promover los beneficios y la importancia de las vacunas en general. Este documento presenta las orientaciones técnicas necesarias para... desarrollar un plan de comunicación adecuado para manejar las crisis relacionadas con la seguridad de las vacunas y de la vacunación. Estas orientaciones les serán útiles a los actores relevantes de nivel gerencial en el área de la inmunización y de la seguridad de las vacunas y la vacunación.
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Herd immunity by mass vaccination offers the potential to substantially limit the continuing spread of COVID-19, but high levels of vaccine hesitancy threaten this goal. In a cross-country analysis of vaccine hesitant respondents across Latin America in January 2021, we experimentally tested how fiv...e features of mass vaccination campaigns—the vaccine’s producer, efficacy, endorser, distributor, and current population uptake rate—shifted willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine. We find that citizens preferred Western-produced vaccines, but were highly influenced by factual information about vaccine efficacy. Vaccine hesitant individuals were more responsive to vaccine messengers with medical expertise than political, religious, or media elite endorsements. Citizen trust in foreign governments, domestic leaders, and state institutions moderated the effects of the campaign features on vaccine acceptance. These findings can help inform the design of unfolding mass inoculation campaigns.
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Este documento de referência foi preparado pelo Grupo de Trabalho sobre Vacinas contra COVID-19 do Grupo Consultivo Estratégico de Especialistas em Imunização (SAGE) para orientar as discussões do SAGE em sua reunião extraordinária de 8 de fevereiro de 2021, que resultou na publicação do do...cumento da OMS de 10 de fevereiro de 2021 Recomendações provisórias para o uso da vacina AZD1222 [ChAdOx1-S (recombinante)] contra COVID-19 desenvolvida pela Universidade de Oxford e pela AstraZeneca. Os dois documentos estão disponíveis na página sobre COVID-19 do SAGE: https://www.who.int/groups/strategic-advisory-group-of-experts-on-immunization/covid-19-materials. Têm sido usados vetores de adenovírus deficientes na replicação contendo um transgene específico do patógeno como novas vacinas devido à sua capacidade de induzir respostas humorais e celulares fortes.
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The role of community health workers in the vaccination against COVID-19: guide to support the implementation of the vaccination programme
WHO technical advisory group on behavioural insights and sciences for health, meeting report, 15 October 2020
This document aims to help EU/EEA public health authorities in the tracing and management of persons, including healthcare workers, who had contact with COVID-19 cases. It outlines the key steps of contact tracing, including contact identification, listing and follow-up, in the context of the COVID-...19 response.
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Our spiritual health profoundly impacts our physical health, well-being, and quality of life. Just as medical professionals care for our bodies and minds, spiritual care practitioners care for our spirits. The increasing need for spiritual care makes these practitioners even more crucial. However, m...any of us have limited access to quality, professional spiritual care. At times of struggle, this lack of spiritual care can have a negative impact on our health and well-being.Investigators and researchers are creating a growing body of evidence for the innumerable benefits of professional spiritual care, yet many people still do not have a lot of accurate information about these practitioners. To create this publication, the six largest healthcare chaplaincy organizations in North America collaborated to share the facts about spiritual care and practitioners’ roles, training, and standards.By providing evidence and dispelling myths, the thousands of spiritual care practitioners represented by these organizations hope to increase access to spiritual care for the benefit of all.
accessed July 2020
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High levels of storage iron may increase malaria susceptibility. This risk has not been investigated in semi-immune adolescents. We investigated whether baseline iron status of nonpregnant adolescent girls living in a high malaria transmission area in Burkina Faso affected malaria risk during the fo...llowing rainy season. For this prospective study, we analysed data from an interim safety survey, conducted six months into a randomised iron supplementation trial. We used logistic regression to model the risk of P. falciparum infection prevalence by microscopy, the pre-specified interim safety outcome, in relation to iron status, nutritional indicators and menarche assessed at recruitment.
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This policy brief has been developed in response to the contemporary challenge of antibiotic resistance (ABR). ABR poses a formidable threat to global health and sustainable development. It is now increasingly recognized that the systematic neglect of cultural factors is one of the biggest obs...tacles to achieving better health outcomes and better standards of living worldwide. Using a cultural contexts of health approach, the policy brief explores the centrality of culture to the challenge of ABR. The brief examines how the prescription and use of antibacterial medicines, the transmission of resistance, and the regulation and funding of research are influenced by cultural, social and commercial, as well as biological and technological factors. The brief moves beyond the ready equation of culture with individual behaviours and demonstrates how culture serve as an enabler of health and provide new possibilities for change.
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orientaciones provisionales, 23 de abril de 2020
Guidance for addressing a global infodemic and fostering demand for immunization
December 2020
Misinformation threatens the success of vaccination programs across the world. This guide aims to help organizations to address the global infodemic through the development of strategic and well-coordina...ted national action plans to rapidly counter vaccine misinformation and build demand for vaccination that are informed by social listening.
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Orientations pour faire face à une infodémie mondiale et favoriser la demande de vaccination
Décembre 2020
La désinformation menace le succès des programmes de vaccination dans le monde entier. Ce guide vise à aider les organisations à faire face à l'infodémie mondiale par l'élaboration ...de plans d'action nationaux stratégiques et bien coordonnés pour contrer rapidement la désinformation sur les vaccins et créer une demande de vaccination qui soit fondée sur l'écoute sociale.
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PLoSONE 14(9):e0223104.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223104.
The survey centering on reasons behind community resistance was conducted in Butembo in November during a time of Ebola transmission. A researcher from Catholic University of Graben in Butembo and collaborators at the University o...f Alberta in Edmonton published their findings on Sep 26 in PLOS One.
To spark focus group discussions, the researchers used an 18-item questionnaire based on similar ones used during West Africa's outbreak in Guinea, where community resistance and episodes of violence also complicated the outbreak response.
Participants were a convenience sample of 670 adults from the region who were recruited by medical students at Catholic University of Graben. Those surveyed included clinicians, community members, and displaced persons.
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Desta et al. Int J Ment Health Syst (2018) 12:38 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-018-0217-z