Increasing Vaccine Uptake Through Community Activation

The latest offering of the Sabin Boost Community’s Advanced Community Activation Training (ACAT) concluded in September, leaving its participants more equipped than ever to broaden immunization access in communities across the globe. Beginning in May 2024, ten teams of four to five individuals from Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, and Pakistan attended weekly virtual sessions with coaches and peers. They learned how to inspire others to action and make more meaningful connections in the communities they work in through storytelling and relationship-building. 

The training, hosted in partnership with People Power Health (PPH) — an organization that empowers healthcare professionals to work toward eliminating inequity — was offered in both French and English for the first time in an effort to reach some of the Boost Community’s most engaged participants in Francophone Africa. 

For the final capstone project of the course, teams used what they had learned to lead their own community activation training sessions for immunization professionals in their communities.  

The Importance of Storytelling and Relationship-Building

Nearly all of the teams’ capstone sessions were centered around the key questions ACAT brought to the forefront:  

• Why is storytelling an important skill for immunization professionals to have as they battle vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake in their communities?  

• How can relationship-building and one-on-one connections with community and religious leaders sow trust in public health and vaccine initiatives?  

• How can immunization professionals improve their skills in these areas? 

Though these common threads guided them, each team’s session took on an interesting and unique life of its own. 

Different Regions, Different Approaches 

Team India focused its discussion among both experienced professionals and newcomers to the field on managing public narrative, relationship-building, and strategizing.  

Team Ethiopia planned to come together in-person, but ultimately went virtual when some participants had an emergency to attend to in the field. The quick change — and the fact that the call was still lively despite the pivot — underscores the nimbleness with which these health professionals work, and their dedication to learning. They analyzed a previous campaign that had run in the area through a community-activation lens and discussed strategies to enhance immunization demand. 

Team Nigeria focused a section of its meeting on managing vaccine misinformation and noticed a real sense of responsibility among its participants to engage the community and scale-up operations in their area.  

Team Pakistan developed the slogan “Kids are yours; care is ours” to anchor its conversation about reaching under-immunized and zero-dose children. Team members also discussed the role of a vaccination professional as a leader and coach.  

Team Cote D’Ivoire and Team Guinea also focused their discussions on reaching children. Team Cote D’Ivoire looped in local NGOs and women’s associations to discuss how best to do so, and Team Guinea set a goal of vaccinating all children they could in their region by December 2024.  

Team Madagascar integrated ACAT learnings during their monthly review of the Vondrozo District, and Burkina Faso centered its capstone session on achieving vaccination coverage among displaced populations. 

Finally, Team Niger emphasized the Boost Community’s work on spreading the word about community activation, and made participants in their capstone aware of the benefits Boost offers to immunization professionals looking to learn and connect with others in the field. 

Building Local Capacity Through Knowledge-Sharing 

The wide-ranging exchanges ACAT participants had within their own communities highlight the different goals, ambitions, and challenges of each region, even as they worked within the same pillars of storytelling and community engagement. In this way, ACAT’s cascading training method was particularly useful in reaching multiple diverse perspectives.  

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to increasing global vaccine uptake — but through offerings like the Boost Community’s Advanced Community Activation Training, participants can identify common threads, learn from each other, grapple with each community’s nuances, and illuminate the most effective paths forward.