Community-based organization perspectives on participating in state-wide community canvassing program aimed to reduce COVID-19 vaccine disparities in California

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  • Mansfield L.N.
    • Affiliation: School of Nursing
  • Carson S.L.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
  • Sunku N.
    • Other Affiliation: Olive View-UCLA Medical Center
  • Troutt A.
    • Other Affiliation: San Francisco Health Plan
  • Jackson S.
    • Other Affiliation: Blue Phoenix Strategies
  • Santillan D.
    • Other Affiliation: Blue Phoenix Strategies
  • Vassar S.D.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
  • Slaughter D.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
  • Kim G.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
  • Norris K.C.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
  • Brown A.F.
    • Other Affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles
Abstract
  • Background: Inequities in COVID-19 vaccine accessibility and reliable COVID-related information disproportionately affected marginalized racial and ethnic communities in the U.S. The Get Out the Vaccine (GOTVax) program, an innovative statewide government-funded COVID-19 vaccine canvassing program in California, aimed to reduce structural barriers to COVID-19 vaccination in high-risk communities with low vaccination rates. GOTVax consisted of a community-academic-government partnership with 34 local trusted community-based organizations’ (CBOs) to conduct COVID-19 vaccine outreach, education, and vaccine registration. The purpose of this qualitative evaluation study was to explore the barriers and facilitators of using local CBOs to deploy a geographically, racially, and ethnically diverse state-wide COVID-19 vaccine outreach program. Methods: Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with participating GOTVax CBO leaders from November 2021 to January 2022. Transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Thirty-one of 34 CBOs participated (91% response rate). Identified themes encompassed both facilitators and barriers to program participation. Key facilitators included leveraging trust through recognized entities; promoting empathetic, tailored outreach; and flexibility of milestone-based CBO funding contracts for rapid program implementation. Barriers included navigating community sociopolitical, geographic, and cultural factors; managing canvassers’ safety; desiring metrics for self-evaluation of outreach success; mitigating canvassing technology challenges; and concerns of program infrastructure initially limiting outreach. CBOs problem-solved barriers with academic and government partners. Conclusions: Between May and December 2021, the GOTVax program reached over 2 million California residents and registered over 60,000 residents for COVID-19 vaccination. Public health campaigns may improve benefits from leveraging the expertise of community-trusted CBOs and universities by providing flexible infrastructure and funding, allowing CBOs to seamlessly tailor outreach most applicable to local minoritized communities.
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  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
License
  • Attribution 4.0 International
Journal title
  • BMC Public Health
Journal volume
  • 23
Journal issue
  • 1
Language
  • English
Version
  • Publisher
Funder
  • National Institutes of Health, NIH, (21-312-0217571-66106 L)
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NCATS
  • State of California, Government Operations Agency
  • University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA
  • Clinical and Translational Science Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA CTSI, (UL1TR001881)
  • Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, CDU
ISSN
  • 1471-2458
Publisher
  • BioMed Central Ltd

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