Building Trust in COVID-19 Vaccines and Beyond Through Authentic Community Investment.

Building Trust in COVID-19 Vaccines and Beyond Through Authentic Community Investment. Am J Public Health. 2020 Dec 10;:e1-e3 Authors: Ojikutu BO, Stephenson KE, Mayer KH, Emmons KM Abstract COVID-19 vaccine development has advanced at lighting speed. Research that would normally require years has been completed in months. As a result of this unprecedented effort, two vaccine candidates, mRNA-1273 (Moderna, Cambridge, MA) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer, New York, NY), have been found to be safe and more than 90% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 shortly after vaccination. These vaccines are extremely promising and will eventually be distributed widely. Unfortunately, as the science of vaccine development has swiftly progressed, the equally important science of community engagement, which should guide the establishment of mutually beneficial partnerships and promote eventual vaccine uptake, has lagged behind. Research methods focused on the development of effective public health interventions place communities-groups with shared culture, norms, beliefs, or language-at their core and emphasize the primacy of community ownership as essential for uptake and sustainability.1 Yet, communities of color (i.e., Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities), who remain at highest risk for infection, have been peripheral, not central actors in the pursuit of COVID-19 vaccines. Instead, the tripartite relationship between industry, government, and...
Source: American Journal of Public Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Am J Public Health Source Type: research