“Vaccination Is…”: A Customizable COVID-19 Vaccine Communications Campaign

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As clinicians in health departments, health centers, and elsewhere strive to communicate the importance of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, culturally and linguistically appropriate communications campaigns have become a necessary tool to reach vulnerable populations. Yet targeted campaigns that meet people, particularly refugee, immigrants and migrants, where they are and speak to community values are hard to find.

Having worked closely with the Lower Shore COVID-19 Vulnerable Populations Task Force [2],  a regional group who meets regularly to tackle barriers for vulnerable populations in the Salisbury, Maryland area, Migrant Clinicians Network (MCN) recognized the need for linguistically and culturally relevant COVID-19 vaccine information for Latinx and Haitian communities. Meeting this need, MCN, in partnership with The National Resource Center for Refugees Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM), collaborated with IDEO.org, a nonprofit design company focused on community-led design and messaging, to create relevant communication materials. Over the past few months IDEO.org and MCN have partnered with community groups, using a human-centered approach to complete research, community focus groups, testing, and re-design. The outcome of the project has been a user-friendly completely customizable COVID-19 vaccine campaign in Spanish and Haitian Creole (English is forthcoming).

The campaign involves three levels of materials. The first level is intended to increase COVID-19 vaccine awareness and inspire viewers to get the vaccine, the second level informs about the vaccines through simple messages, while the third level aims to communicate more complex ideas and combat myths that surround COVID-19 vaccines.   Below is a summary of each of the customizable campaign materials and templates.  While the campaign was created to meet the needs of the Latinx and Haitian Creole communities on the Delmarva Peninsula, the materials can be used as is or adapted to meet the needs of your community. An instructional guide to assist with developing targeted campaigns and tools to help you more easily adapt the materials is forthcoming.     

Level One: Engage

Posters: This resource includes ready-made posters that display the campaign phrase “Vaccination Is….” in Spanish and Haitian Creole with supporting phrases selected by the community. The posters include a call to action to get the COVID-19 vaccine, a ‘V’ mark  displaying colors associated with flags of various countries, and a customizable area for a phone number and website link to make an appointment for the vaccine.

There are six posters available in Spanish and six available in Haitian Creole. Each set of six posters uses three different slogans, with each slogan having two different photo options. The photos used for each set of posters are relevant to the community it is meant for (Latinx and Haitian). The Haitian Creole posters include the phrases “Vaccination Is…” ‘love’, ‘hope’, and ‘strength’, and the Spanish posters include the phrases “Vaccination Is…” ‘protection’, ‘hope’, and ‘strength’.

Social Media Graphics: This resource includes ready-made as well as customable social media graphics and captions in Spanish and Haitian Creole. The graphics include the same slogans and images used in the posters described above. Supporting materials also provide sample social media captions that align with the main messages expressed in the graphics and utilize language that is rooted in the values of the communities they are meant for.

Social Media Frames: This resource includes social media frames in Spanish and Haitian Creole that include the slogan “For me vaccination is…” ending with the same supporting words that are included in the posters described above. It also includes a customization kit that guides users step-by-step through uploading their own profile photo, editing, and saving the document as a jpeg. 

Stickers: This resource includes ready-made printable “I got the vaccine” stickers in Spanish and Haitian Creole that include the ‘V’ mark in different color options for each flag in Latin America. The kit also includes a different completely customizable sticker where both the ‘V’ mark and the text can be edited.

Level Two: Inform

Social Media Stories: This resource offers pre-made social media stories through the format of panel designs that include text, and graphics. The resource offers a customization kit that allow users to edit the text, graphics, and images. The kit also includes a video that demonstrates how to upload the story onto a social media platform.

Information Sheets: This resource offers customizable information sheets that contain text, graphics, and an area for your organization logo. The customization kit explains to users how to edit the text, and images. The kit also provides an image bank of specially designed graphics to choose from as well as completed examples that can be used for vaccine awareness or for inspiration. 

Level Three: Reassure

Comic Strips: This resource includes comic strips for both print and social media. The comic strip kit contains examples and customization guidelines for print graphics as well as the social media customization templates that allow users to download the final product as a jpeg.

Materials from levels two and three will be posted over the next couple of weeks.

MCN partners with The National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM), funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide assistance and resources to state and local health departments working with refugee, immigrant, and migrant communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Learn more at nrcrim.umn.edu [3] and sign up for their newsletter [4] for their latest updates.

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