Crafting Vaccine Hesitancy Messaging to Unique Patient Apprehensions

Moving the needle on the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, access, and uptake effort is going to require public health officials to zero in on a key demographic: those who could actually be persuaded to take the vaccine.

Public health officials should also leverage the enthusiasm from people who have already gotten the vaccine or who currently want to get one. Encouraging conversations between family members will be helpful, the survey authors said, as will social media campaigns encouraging vaccine recipients to post about their good experiences.

The “Cost Anxious” cohort will need to hear from credible sources, like healthcare payers and clinician groups, that the vaccine is totally free. Public health officials will also have to address the time issue among this cohort. For wage workers or those who do not have paid sick time, that could be detrimental.