Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy Through Application of Reminder Systems and Vaccine Information Availability

Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy Through Application of Reminder Systems and Vaccine Information Availability

Project Purpose Statement

This project focuses on the growing rate of hesitancy and resistance among the American people toward vaccine uptake, especially as it has been experienced during the COVID-19 outbreak. The project explores some of the major approaches that can be applied by the government and within the healthcare sector to counter the growing vaccine resistance and hesitance and improve vaccine uptake. In this case, the project’s main aim is to apply and evaluate the significance of using reminder systems and improved vaccine information availability as intervention protocols towards improving adult vaccination rates, especially among older adult populations. The project will compare these vaccination intervention protocols with the use of vaccine mandates by the government during the COVID-19 vaccination in the drive toward vaccination in reducing vaccine hesitancy, focusing on COVID-19 vaccination. Do you need help with your assignment ? Contact us at eminencepapers.com.

As vaccination has been identified as a crucial primary public health measure towards the control of the spread of diseases as well as the prevention of new and future infections (McDuffie, 2021), it is important to study and understand population hesitancy towards vaccination and the factors that contribute to vaccine resistance and how to overcome them. Therefore, this project will explore vaccine hesitancy and how the use of reminder systems and improving the availability of vaccine information can contribute to effective communication and address people’s misconceptions about vaccines if such improved communication can improve the acceptance of vaccines and vaccination. Furthermore, by comparing the use of reminder systems and improving access to available information on vaccines with mandating vaccines, the project’s findings will provide evidence to support vaccine-related policies and other public health policy decisions in the future.

Background and Significance of the Problem

Vaccine hesitancy has become a growing issue of public health concern in the United States in recent years. Based on the history of the use of vaccines in the U.S. as an approach towards disease control, it is reported that the use of vaccines has seen the eradication of 10 major diseases that were found to be fatal to humans by 92 to 100 per cent throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries (Pennington, 2021). For instance, diseases such as smallpox and polio have completely been eradicated and or nearly eradicated in the United States through the development of related vaccines. A larger achievement has also been made across the world since the introduction of vaccines for various diseases. Drawing from the achievements made so far and the available evidence on the effectiveness of vaccines in reducing and eradicating diseases, it is inarguable that vaccines have saved and continue to save millions of lives across the world by actively preventing the emergency, development, and spread of fatal diseases. Besides saving lives, the evidence also supports the use of vaccines as an effective approach to the control and eradication of infectious diseases across the world (Mühlhoff, 2022). These evident achievements make vaccines necessary to maintain quality public health. Despite these achievements and their effectiveness in saving lives, vaccine hesitancy remains to be an issue at the community level. From the early ages of vaccines aimed at preventing and controlling smallpox, measles, and other disease outbreaks such as influenza, resistance has countered every new vaccine developed for diseases throughout the history of vaccines. The World Health Organization rates vaccine hesitancy among the top ten major concerns and threats to the sustainability of public health globally (Nuwarda et al., 2022).

The history of the smallpox disease and the smallpox vaccine and the resulting hesitancy towards the vaccine creates a standard example of the population’s hesitancy towards vaccination. Irrespective of the severity of the disease, since the early days, people have developed various concerns over the vaccines, leading to reduced uptake during the introduction of the smallpox vaccine (Khardori, 2022). However, governments have been noted to utilize various strategies such as intimidation and coercion towards the push for smallpox vaccination, eventually leading to the vaccine’s acceptance and the disease’s eradication.

In recent years, vaccine hesitancy has become more concerning, as highlighted by the recent efforts to vaccinate the people of the U.S. and the world. Overcoming vaccine resistance is an issue as it is caused by various interrelated social, political, religious, cultural, and economic factors. For instance, previously applied methods of campaigning for vaccination, such as intimidation, can no longer be applied today. Such methods, like mandating vaccines, such as the recent COVID-19 vaccine, have only led to further resistance towards government efforts to improve vaccination. Although mandatory vaccination is effective in improving vaccination against seasonal influenza, especially among healthcare workers, evidence shows that it has only contributed to further resistance to COVID-19 (Peters, 2022). Vaccine mandates in the U.S. have also been politicized or interpreted from a political perspective as a way of government control over the people, contributing to the experienced population-level hesitancy and lower uptake rates as expected.

Additionally, the rate of vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 and other major vaccinate diseases has grown due to the extensive misinformation, mostly across social media platforms. Individuals,anti-vaccine movements, and advocacy groups have used social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to promote various vaccine conspiracy theories, including the relation between vaccines and conditions and disabilities such as autism (Smith & Graham, 2017). Others have also linked COVID-19 vaccines to a phenomenon described as sudden death despite a lack of evidence for such relationships, which has further drained public confidence in the vaccines (Melton et al., 2021). Other factors contributing to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy have been religious and cultural perspectives on vaccination, as well as concerns about the affordability and accessibility of the vaccines to people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Early evidence from vaccination efforts against smallpox has shown that, although herd immunity can, to a certain degree, lower the spread of infectious disease, the conviction of the effectiveness of herd immunity is a factor that contributes to vaccine resistance (Mühlhoff, 2022).

Overall, vaccine hesitancy is a significant issue in the U.S. with significant consequences for individual and public health. Resistance to vaccines has been found to be high for HPV and influenza, with resistance rates reaching up to 25 per cent of the general population (Nowak & Cacciatore, 2023). Currently, the rate of vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. remains high. Only a minor increase of 10.8 per cent was achieved in 2020, which decreased to 7.4 per cent in 2021 (Yasmin et al., 2021). This drop in the acceptance of the new COVID-19 vaccines indicates an increasing rate of vaccine hesitancy in the country.

Lack of vaccination, as contributed to by the widespread vaccine hesitancy, risks further spread of the disease and increased risk of morbidity and mortality, especially among individuals with weak immunity. These further risks an increase in the costs of care for infected individuals. For instance, a study by Scott et al. (2022) showed that unvaccinated people with COVID-19 had an increased risk of developing complications with other diseases and conditions, with medical costs estimated to be above $208 as compared to vaccinated patients. Additionally, evidence shows superior survival rates for vaccinated populations after infection as compared to unvaccinated people, who are more likely to succumb to the disease and other complications such as kidney and liver problems (Hardgrave et al., 2022). Vaccine hesitancy further risks an increased outbreak of new diseases and mutations of COVID-19 within the communication if a majority of the population remains unvaccinated. This can have a toll on herd immunity, further increasing the prevalence of the disease. This generally slows the process of eradicating or reducing COVID-19, which has long-term impacts on the healthcare system, including the efficiency of the health systems and general care costs.

Addressing vaccine hesitance in the 21^st century and the digital world requires the application of innovative approaches that can help counter the major factors contributing to the issue and promote inclusiveness of the vaccination exercise. The use of reminder systems and improving access to vaccine information are innovative as the information can be targeted to a particular population. The targeting of information, as well as reminders to particular individuals, can help individuals access correctly evidence-backed information to deconstruct vaccination myths and misinformation. The reminders can help them know when to get their next vaccine shots. The readily available information combined with timely reminders is expected to increase vaccine acceptance. The overall outcome of improved vaccination rates is the development of wider population protection for the unvaccinated as well as the vulnerable in society. This can reduce the overall costs of care associated with multimorbidity as well as reduce the risks of the emergence of new outbreaks. The long-term goal of improving vaccination rates is to help society support the efficiency and sustainability of the U.S. healthcare system.

Formatted PICOT Clinical Project Question

The focus will be on the adult population of the U.S., which is concerned over various factors of the COVID-19 vaccines, such as safety and efficiency, which have contributed to their unwillingness to get vaccinated. The project will apply reminder systems and strategies that improve access to vaccine information to determine whether they can counter vaccine hesitance as compared to mandating COVID-19 vaccinations. The overall outcomes will be analyzed over a period of six months.

Therefore, the formatted PICOT question is: Among U.S. adults with concerns over vaccine safety and efficiency (P), does the use of reminder systems and improved vaccine information availability (I), compared to vaccine mandates (C), improve adult vaccination rates for COVID-19 (O) in six-months (T)?

 References

Hardgrave, H., Wells, A., Nigh, J., Klutts, G., Krinock, D., Osborn, T., Bhusal, S., Rude, M. K., Burdine, L., & Giorgakis, E. (2022). COVID-19 Mortality in Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Liver & Kidney Transplant Recipients: A Single-Center United States Propensity Score Matching Study on Historical Data. Vaccines 2022, Vol. 10, Page 1921, 10(11), 1921. https://doi.org/10.3390/VACCINES10111921

Khardori, N. (2022). Vaccines and vaccine resistance: Past, present and future. Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology, 40(2), 187–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJMMB.2021.12.008

McDuffie, D. C. (2021). Sacred immunity: religion, vaccines, and the protection of public health in America. Journal of Public Health (Germany), 29(6), 1365–1371. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10389-020-01254-7/METRICS

Melton, C. A., Olusanya, O. A., Ammar, N., & Shaban-Nejad, A. (2021). Public sentiment analysis and topic modeling regarding COVID-19 vaccines on the Reddit social media platform: A call to action for strengthening vaccine confidence. Journal of Infection and Public Health, 14(10), 1505–1512. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JIPH.2021.08.010

Mühlhoff, K. (2022). Convincing the “Herd” of immunity: Lessons from smallpox vaccination in 19th century Germany. Economics & Human Biology, 47, 101193. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.EHB.2022.101193

Nowak, G. J., & Cacciatore, M. A. (2023). State of Vaccine Hesitancy in the United States. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 70(2), 197–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PCL.2022.11.001

Nuwarda, R. F., Ramzan, I., Weekes, L., & Kayser, V. (2022). Vaccine Hesitancy: Contemporary Issues and Historical Background. Vaccines, 10(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/VACCINES10101595

Pennington, M. (2021). Vaccine Hesitancy: A Story as Old as Vaccines Themselves. Eureka. https://www.criver.com/eureka/vaccine-hesitancy-story-old-vaccines-themselves

Peters, M. D. J. (2022). Addressing vaccine hesitancy and resistance for COVID-19 vaccines. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 131, 104241. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJNURSTU.2022.104241

Scott, A., Chambers, R., Reimbaeva, M., Atwell, J., Baillon-Plot, N., Draica, F., & Tarallo, M. (2022). Real-world retrospective analysis of patient characteristics, healthcare resource utilization, costs, and treatment patterns among unvaccinated adults with COVID-19 diagnosed in outpatient settings in the United States. Journal of Medical Economics, 25(1), 287–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/13696998.2022.2037917/SUPPL_FILE/IJME_A_2037917_SM5636.DOCX

Smith, N., & Graham, T. (2017). Mapping the anti-vaccination movement on Facebook. Information, Communication, & Society, 22(9), 1310–1327. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1418406

Yasmin, F., Najeeb, H., Moeed, A., Naeem, U., Asghar, M. S., Chughtai, N. U., Yousaf, Z., Seboka, B. T., Ullah, I., Lin, C. Y., & Pakpour, A. H. (2021). COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in the United States: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 1877. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPUBH.2021.770985/

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Assignment Prompt

This week’s assignment is STEP 2 – Project Purpose Statement, Background & Significance and PICOt Formatted Clinical Project Question.

The student will answer the items below in a Word doc and submit them to the assignment link.

Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy through Application of Reminder Systems and Vaccine Information Availability

Provide a title that conveys or describes the assignment.
Project Purpose Statement – Provide a declarative sentence or two that summarizes the specific topic and goals of the project.
Background and Significance – State the importance of the problem and emphasize what is innovative about your proposed project. Discuss the potential impact of your project on your anticipated results for the betterment of health and/or health outcomes.
PICOt formatted Clinical Project Questions – Provide the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Expected Outcomes, and timeframe for the proposed project.
References – Cite references using APA 7th ed format.
Expectations

Due: Monday, 11:59 pm PT
Length: See section requirements above
Format: Completed template with references in APA 7th ed. format
File name: Save the file with Student First Name_Last Name_Part 2