Enabling Family Physicians to Reduce Vaccine Hesitancy and Increase Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake

Summary

The approval and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is an important milestone in the fight against the pandemic. However, although vaccines are widely recognized as a key public health measure to control infectious disease, there are still people who remain hesitant to get vaccinated. In Canada, 83% of Canadian adults have received or are willing to receive the vaccine. However, nearly 20% of adults and a larger proportion of parents of younger children remain concerned about receiving vaccines. In the context of a project to enable family physicians to identify vaccine-hesitant patients and deliver a tailored COVID-19 vaccination outreach campaign, the Canadian Practice Information Network, a tool for primary care providers to communicate with their patients, will be used to engage and address vaccination hesitancy in Canada. The study will identify information needs about COVID-19 vaccination among community-dwelling patients in three Canadian provinces and will assess the effectiveness of a tailored COVID-19 vaccine digital health communication strategy for primary care practices to address vaccination hesitancy and improve COVID-19 vaccination uptake.

A two-arm cluster randomized trial design will be conducted in primary care practices in three Canadian provinces: Ontario, British Columbia, and New Brunswick. The study will use a convenience sample of primary care practice in these provinces. Recruited participants will be randomly allocated to the intervention and control groups. Patients assigned to the control group will receive health messages unrelated to the COVID-19.

Participants in the intervention group will receive a series of tailored messages on COVID-19 vaccination targeting the main factors for hesitancy to address their concerns and persuade them to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Aggregated survey responses across practices will be used to create segments of unvaccinated patients reflecting age, language, education level, rurality, sex, gender, ethnicity, and their attitudes or reasons for vaccine hesitancy or access barriers. Then, tailored messages will be created in a way that is meaningful to the recipients in the different segments.

The primary outcome is the proportion of vaccine-hesitant individuals who receive a COVID-19 vaccine during the intervention period. The secondary outcome is the overall COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Conditions

• Covid19
• COVID-19 Vaccine

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Tailored COVID-19 vaccine messages

Survey responses from participants will be aggregated to create hesitant patient segments. Then, specific content messages will be created following the health belief model, in a way that is meaningful to the recipients in the different segments, to persuade them to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

OTHER

Other health messages

Other health messages unrelated to COVID-19 will be sent to participants in the control arm

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Eastern Ontario Health Unit

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Hopital Montfort

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sharon Johnston, MD · Institut du Savoir Montfort

• William Hogg, MD · Institut du Savoir Montfort

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-11-14

Primary Completion

2023-04-24

Completion

2023-07-14

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations