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COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1435231
Role of Community Engagement in Advancing Vaccine Equity
Provisionally accepted- 1 Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy, Las Vegas, United States
- 2 University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, United States
- 3 Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, Carson City, United States
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing health disparities among historically and currently underserved, underresourced, and marginalized communities worldwide. These communities faced disproportionate COVID-19 morbidity and mortality and were generally less likely to receive a COVID-19 vaccine once it became widely available to the public. Community engagement is an approach that can help bridge these inequities. This community case study adapted and implemented an existing community engagement framework to tailor a statewide vaccine equity effort that addresses community-specific priorities during a public health emergency. The adapted framework includes the following key phases: 1) creating an environment for community engagement; 2) making the work relevant; 3) narrowing the focus; 4) planning and conducting the work; and 5) evaluating the work. All of these supported the successful establishment of a statewide collaboration that consisted of various partners from various sectors who shared a collective commitment to increase COVID-19 vaccine confidence and address barriers to vaccination among the diverse communities in Nevada. Ultimately, a community engagement framework can provide a roadmap to navigate the dynamic and multifaceted nature of equity-related work by paving the way for meaningful interventions to mitigate health disparities.
Keywords: Community-engaged, Vaccine equity, partnerships, community collaborations, vaccine confidence, COVID-19, Conceptual framework
Received: 19 May 2024; Accepted: 06 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Smith, Marquez, Haboush-Deloye, Tu, Goodie and Perez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Erika Marquez, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, United States
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