According to latest numbers, 1 in 4 Americans don’t want the COVID-19 vaccine. Whether due to hesitancy, fear, mistrust or politicization, it’s clear that we’re not out of the woods yet. In this webinar—the third discussion MIF has hosted about addressing vaccine hesitancy—we heard from philanthropic leaders on the various ways they are supporting media efforts to increase vaccine confidence and access. (The first session of our Media Impact Forum focused on guidelines for developing a communications framework to address hesitancy, and the second session looked at messaging strategies from the Colorado Health Foundation, the Ad Council and others. Watch those discussions here.)
In this webinar:
Estelle Willie of the Rockefeller Foundation provided an overview of Rockefeller’s equity-first vaccination initiative, which focuses on supporting community-based organizations to increase access to vaccines, as well as accurate information to help people make informed decisions. Willie also shared details about the work Rockefeller has done to understand the motivations and hesitations behind getting vaccinated.
Open Society Foundations’ Brett Davidson shared details about OSF’s work supporting The Peoples Vaccine, a campaign focused on ensuring fair access through affordable vaccine prices around the world by pushing back on pharmaceutical company monopolies of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments, and encouraging the sharing of vaccine technology, know-how and intellectual property to scale up production.
Lastly, using the experience from its prior work on HIV, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Black Coalition Against COVID co-developed an information campaign featuring comedian and TV host W. Kamau Bell called The CONVERSATION: Between Us, About Us. We heard about the campaign and its outcomes, and the process for developing a new campaign for Latinx/Spanish-speaking communities.
Watch the discussion:
