Washington Community Health Centers COVID Vaccine Outreach Campaign Summary
As COVID vaccines were rolled out in the early months of 2021, community health centers across the state reported that many of the communities they served had fears and doubts about getting vaccinated. The Washington Association for Community Health and Community Health Network of Washington developed an outreach campaign to help address COVID vaccine hesitancy amongst their patients and within their communities, particularly patients who speak languages other than English.
The campaign included two phases – a toolkit with materials that health centers could use to communicate directly with patients and an ad buy on radio, digital media, and social media.
Media buys
A paid media campaign was developed and executed to reach health center patients with information about vaccination safety.
Radio ads and provider interviews
We partnered with El Rey Spanish language radio station to produce three Spanish language ads which ran for six weeks from late April through May to coincide with when vaccination was opened to all Washingtonians over the age of 16. Listen to the three ads here.
To expand reach, scripts were provided for the ads to health centers in Eastern Washington who had independent relationships with their local Spanish language station, so they did not need to start from scratch for their planned campaigns.
Additionally, Spanish speaking health center staff participated in live, on-air interviews to address vaccine safety concerns. Providers from Yakima Valley Farm Workers, HealthPoint and Sea Mar Community Health Centers participated in Spanish-language interviews on El Rey on 4/26 (Dr. Antonio Germann, Yakima Valley Farm Workers), 5/6 (Jasmin Zavala, Sea Mar), and 5/13 (Dr. Dinnelle Pineda, HealthPoint.) Interviews included health care workers who were initially hesitant to be vaccinated that described why they changed their minds.
Digital banner ads
We also ran Spanish language digital ads with the El Mundo network to reach Spanish speakers in every corner of the state. Digital ads ran from 4/1/21 to 4/22/21 and received approximately 30,000 views.
Social Media Ads
The campaign also included several Facebook ads aimed at younger people from immigrant families with messages about how vaccination would protect themselves and their families. Ads ran from April 26 to May 26 in Seattle, Tacoma, Yakima, and Spokane and were targeted at immigrant youth.
PLEASE NOTE: originally, we had planned to use a larger budget for facebook ads, but based on the audience reach numbers provided by facebook for our target audiences and the subsequent time spent removing derogatory/negative memes and comments posted in responses to the ads, we decided that the smaller budget would reach our intended audience and re-allocated resources to radio and other ads.
Toolkit for health centers
A survey of Washington health centers helped identify messaging and materials needs for a COVID-19 vaccine outreach toolkit. Health centers called out materials they needed to address concerns about vaccine safety among patients to fill in gaps in materials available from the state and other sources. The messaging used in these materials was further informed by research by the Ad Council, which found that messaging that emphasized vaccination as a way to protect patients’ families motivated people to get vaccinated.
Materials were translated in Spanish, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Vietnamese, Amharic, and Somali.
The toolkit included print ready materials, as well as design files and PDFs that health centers could edit by adding their logos, phone numbers and other important information.
The poster, one-pager, and pharmacy handout were designed with four different photo options, so health centers could use the version that would best reach their patients.
A webinar for health centers introduced the materials and provided guidance for using them.
The toolkit included:
