Strategy
The Washington State Department of Health created a customizable educational materials toolkit to support and encourage flu, COVID-19, and RSV vaccination, including co-administration of all eligible respiratory prevention vaccines, especially among populations with declining vaccination rates.
Challenge
Vaccine fatigue has been a significant challenge in the post-pandemic landscape. A prime example of this fatigue occurred during the fall of 2023, when the 2023-2024 updated COVID-19 vaccines emerged. The public and media had moved on from vaccine conversations at a time when COVID-19 and other preventable respiratory illnesses were still a threat to public health. Privatization of the COVID-19 vaccine led to concerns of barriers to public access, and pandemic-related grant funding began to phase out programs and staffing. Concerns about how to sustain robust immunization efforts in the face of uncertainty were shared statewide from local health jurisdictions, tribal partners, providers, and other stakeholders. Local health staff relayed concerns that they were unable to create new material themselves, especially when it came to accessibility costs such as translation and transcreation. Limited staffing, small budgets, and available time were identified as considerable barriers.
Solution
To address these challenges, the Washington State Department of Health created the customizable educational materials toolkit in October 2023. The creation and distribution of the toolkit involved feedback requests and then finalized product promotion through newsletters, email, online public health message boards, clinical advisory meetings, immunization conferences (NAIIS, IACW, etc.), biweekly newsletter emails sharing translation and transcreation updates to the toolkit, individual outreach and technical assistance to partners serving priority populations, and monthly webinar updates with public information officers and local health staff encouraging feedback and requests for additional content for toolkit inclusion. The toolkit content was later translated into 16 additional languages.
There were several goals associated with the creation of the toolkit. One was to support and encourage flu, COVID-19, and RSV vaccination, including co-administration of all eligible respiratory prevention vaccines, especially among populations with declining vaccination rates. The second was to provide a comprehensive suite of co-brandable educational resources, social media templates, media talking points, and tools to combat misinformation for local health and tribal partners across all regions and specialties. These resources unified and strengthened vaccine messaging and education for patients about vaccine safety, effectiveness, and accessibility. The third goal was to address the unique needs of diverse communities to increase vaccine uptake and help communicate access. The fourth was to assist local health programs by providing clear, accessible, and accurate vaccination information and material in multiple languages.
The creation and distribution of the customizable education materials toolkit took approximately 80-100 staff hours. The project was funded by CDC grants for COVID-19 emergency response. The creation of the toolkit involved coordinating with local health immunization staff from multiple districts, public information officers, and regional health officers. The toolkit was disseminated in 30 county health departments, three multi-county health districts, two city-county health departments, and 29 federally recognized Indian tribes, representing 7.7 million Washington state residents.
Outcome
As of August 2024, there have been nearly 1,000 unique visits to the toolkit and there has been a 67% engagement rate with the materials. The project highlighted the benefits of partnering with local and regional health staff and resulted in ongoing collaboration with those departments. Promotion of the toolkit has become a mainstay in all weekly and monthly vaccine health education activities, for both online and in-person opportunities. The dedication of time to building bi-directional, mutually beneficial vaccine communication between the Washington State Department of Health, local health partners, tribes and non-English speaking communities has been a key factor for success. Proactive outreach to and collaboration with public health partners has informed ongoing toolkit content improvements and variety. The multi-language tools for health partners have improved patient communication and addressed misinformation. As a result, Washington state has been able to maintain some of the highest respiratory disease prevention vaccination rates in the country.
Supplemental Materials