ABOUT THE GUIDE

In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) and five community partners with deep ties to racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse communities launched the Vaccine Equity Project, with funding from NNPHI through a Cooperative Agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background

Meet the community partners

Meet the project partners

Advancing Community Health Equity

The funding provided a unique opportunity to develop infrastructure, build on best practices from the work community partners were leading, and extend the evidence base on how to offer culturally humble education, resources, and services to communities who had concerns or structural barriers related to adult vaccination. Initially grounded in a survey of existing evidence and a scan of available literature regarding what makes for successful community engagement, the project was designed to reduce vaccine hesitancy, improve access to vaccination, and increase the number of people vaccinated in communities that have faced systemic barriers to health equity.

Through this funding and structure, NNPHI worked with project partners Spitfire Strategies, a communications strategy firm, and HRiA, a public health institute who provided evaluation capacity for this project. We came together to support frontline community partners in either implementing strategies or developing tailored approaches, activities, and resources to address their communities’ needs in linguistically and culturally responsive ways. A significant focus of the partnerships focused on working with community partners to improve capacity and infrastructure to carry the work forward beyond this particular project.

The Vaccine Equity Project provided an opportunity for community partners to learn from and collaborate with each other about the real-world challenges involved in advancing community health equity in the context of a global pandemic. To ensure that these learnings could be broadly disseminated and applied to future public health emergencies, project partners — including NNPHI, technical assistance partners Health Resources in Action (evaluation), and Spitfire Strategies (communication) – worked together to implement a flexible, equity-focused evaluation process and communications toolkit. The evaluation was designed to reflect communities’ priorities and values, align with partners’ capacity and resources, and satisfy funding requirements. The communications toolkit provided tools for community-based organizations and public health institutions to better work together as partners to serve communities. Through the partnerships, more than 375 tailored materials were created, including toolkits, flyers, infographics, PSA videos, webinars, and more.

Drawing on the lessons learned from the Vaccine Equity Project, the project and community partners came together to develop the Community Guide to Advancing Health Equity to provide key strategies and resources for organizations rooted in communities to promote better health outcomes for all.

Meet the community partners

The following are the five community organizations that partnered closely on the development of this guide, each of whom led vaccine equity initiatives in this work.

African Family Health Organization

The African Family Health Organization (AFAHO) works to provide culturally sensitive health, human, and educational services to African and Caribbean immigrants and refugees in the greater Philadelphia region. As part of the Vaccine Equity Project, AFAHO worked to develop and distribute compelling and accessible health messaging about COVID-19 vaccination and to provide vaccination opportunities and reduce obstacles to healthcare access for communities in greater Philadelphia. AFAHO has also begun offering mentoring for similar organizations to help them build capacity, and has grown their internal focus on staff support to mitigate compassion fatigue and build team cohesion and support.

Dolores Huerta Foundation

The Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF) is a nonprofit organization working to inspire and organize communities to activate around social justice issues, including civic engagement, education equity, health and safety, and LGBTQIA+ equality. As part of the Vaccine Equity Project, DHF focused on addressing vaccine hesitancy, educational needs about vaccination, and reducing obstacles to healthcare access in rural communities in California’s Central Valley, specifically among Latinx, immigrant, and Black populations, with a focus on farmworker communities across the region. DHF also partnered with the California Association of African-American Superintendents and Administrators (CAAASA) to reach more than 60,000 families across a 3 county region. DHF staff highlight the need to bring joy to the work that they do.

Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan | National Native Network

The Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan (ITCM) works in tandem with the National Native Network as a public health resource to improve health outcomes and combat health inequities among members of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes across North America. ITCM’s vaccine outreach media campaign, Care For Us By Us, aims to increase positive perception and uptake of adult vaccines with fact-based public messaging to American Indians and Alaska Natives, increase efficacy among tribal health providers to deliver vaccine education and administration, and create tribal-specific toolkits to equip partners with community-centered messaging. ITCM worked with ten tribal nations in the geographic United States to develop public health infrastructure, provide skills-based training for health providers, and expand capacity for vaccination that would persist after the pandemic.

Project HEALINGS

Project HEALINGS is led by the Chinese American Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Multi Cultural Community Alliance Coalition, working to close vaccination gaps and other health inequities in African American and Pan African Minnesotans, Asian Pacific Minnesotans, Hispanic/Latinx Minnesotans, Native Americans, and LGBTQ+/homeless youth populations by serving as a hub for health and wellness. Centering community input, Project HEALINGS took a multigenerational and intercultural approach to creating videos and articles and hosting pop-up education and vaccination clinics in more than 15 languages to provide tailored and culturally appropriate information about vaccinations to priority audiences. This unique coalition brought together business, faith, and service organizations in service of improving collaboration to serve their diverse communities. Partners were: CACC, HACER, Zintkala Luta, Overcomers Church, Encouraging Leaders, and the Hmong Shaman and Herb Center.

Public Health Solutions

Public Health Solutions (PHS) works to improve all New Yorkers’ general health and wellness. As part of the Vaccine Equity Project, PHS worked to increase vaccination rates among pregnant people, with a focus on racially and ethnically diverse expecting community members, by equipping health providers to talk about the vaccine in a way that was appropriate for each of their messengers and the various roles they played (practitioner, nutritionist, etc.). Their delivering trust campaign focused on messaging and outreach. PHS has partnerships with more than 200 community organizations to leverage their combined resources to meet the diverse needs across the boroughs.

Meet the project partners

The following are the project partners who worked together to develop the initial evaluation process and communications toolkit for the Vaccine Equity project and who alongside community partners transformed those learnings into this guide.

NNPHI

The National Network of Public Health Institutes supports national public health system initiatives and strengthens public health institutes to promote multisector activities resulting in measurable improvements of public health systems, structures, and outcomes. With an expansive organizational presence and activities across all 50 states, serving tribes and territories, NNPHI is a go-to resource for analysis and best practices. NNPHI connects subject matter experts to public health problems to research, implement, and evaluate viable, equitable solutions.

HRiA

Health Resources in Action (HRiA) is a non-profit organization working to improve and reimagine public health. We connect, consult, and collaborate to solve complex challenges of access and equity in our health and social systems. Together with our partners, clients, and collaborators, we create actionable solutions so that all people can thrive.

Spitfire Strategies

Spitfire is a woman-owned, strategic communication firm that partners with nonprofits and foundations working to make the world a better place. Spitfire’s values are rooted in one core principle: Everyone belongs and has the power to spark change. Our work reflects this.

We also want to thank our additional partners for their work reaching communities and testing these Guiding Principles, and their commitment to equitable health care access.

This project is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award (CDC-RFA-IP21-2113: Immunization Research, Demonstration, Public Information and Education_Training and Clinical Skills Improvement Projects) totaling $6,700,000 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents of this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CDC/HHS, or the U.S. Government.