New research exploring vaccination confidence provides vital lessons for public health campaigns.

It is well documented that there’s lower vaccine confidence to COVID-19 vaccines among some ethnic minority communities living in the UK. This evidence follows a historical trend of lower vaccine uptake in areas with a higher proportion of ethnic minority groups across England. 

At the root of the problem are institutional mistrust and misinformation – and that is what the healthcare sector and policymakers need to address.  

Addressing mistrust and misinformation about NHS programmes could also help reduce health inequalities at a local level.  

Healthwatch England’s research  

To better understand and address vaccine hesitancy, Healthwatch England partnered with Traverse, a social research organisation.  

They undertook in-depth conversations and online exercises with 95 participants from African, Bangladeshi, Caribbean and Pakistani backgrounds communities over five weeks during March and April. The people they engaged with have primarily hesitant attitudes or lack confidence in the vaccine.   

Key lessons for public health sector and communications professionals   

Attitudes to the vaccine are incredibly personal and we cannot make any broad conclusions about whole communities from our findings. Healthwatch England have drawn out some key themes to support improvement in the way the NHS and other public health professionals communicate with the public.  

Allow for agency  

Give people agency to decide about the vaccine by providing them with all the information they need. Whilst it is important to stress the reasons behind the necessity for taking a vaccine, it should be framed as an offer that people can take up as soon as they feel comfortable.   

Independence of institutions  

Ensure your organisational status is clear. Whilst participants generally trusted doctors, scientists and the NHS, they did less when they saw the NHS as a branch of the government. There was general distrust of those who had any possibility of standing to gain commercially from the COVID-19 vaccination roll out.  

Focus on transparency  

Make all information about the vaccine public and accessible. Transparency helps build trust. The participants Healthwatch England engaged with felt that the more transparent a source is, the more trustworthy it is. They admitted they could not possibly synthesise all the information on vaccines, but they want to know all information is readily available for the public.   

Localise the approach  

Reach out to communities and engage locally and directly.  

Setting up online events for local areas with a panel that includes local health workers, scientists and community leaders can be a very powerful way to build trust and answer questions.  

The participants had higher levels of trust in people if they have tangible links to the vaccine rollout programme, such as local GPs and frontline workers. Public Health officials, distant religious leaders, celebrities and politicians did not render the same levels of trust.  

Targeted messaging to communities via someone they have little tangible connection to can have the counter-effect to what was intended.  

Address ambiguity  

Give people the information they need to make decisions they feel comfortable with. 

The individuals had many unanswered questions about the need to get vaccinated, technical questions regarding the making and roll-out of the vaccine, and if there were any potential long-term impacts of the vaccine and its suitability for specific religions/ethnicities.  

For example, when participants were asked to watch an official Public Health England video, they thought that it didn’t recognise ambiguities around potential long-term impacts, which they felt could raise suspicion despite the video’s intended positivity towards the vaccine.