V-PROTECT: Confidence Program [Vaccinate to Protect Yourself, Your Family, and Your Community]

The V-PROTECT: Confidence Program ('Vaccinate to Protect Yourself, Your Family, and Your Community') aims to address vaccine hesitancy and low uptake rates among Black and Asian refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) communities in Illinois by identifying ethnically and culturally tailored interventions to increase confidence in vaccine products, vaccine providers, and vaccine policy. As the largest and most diverse metropolitan area in the most populous state in the Midwest, Chicago is a major hub for RIM communities, while Illinois has nearly 2 million foreign-born residents. The foreign-born Asian population increased by approximately 19.4% since 2010. The foreign-born Black population increased by approximately 66% since 2010. In 2015, Chicago data shows 33.6% of Asian and Pacific Islander adults were vaccinated for the flu, compared to 43.2% of White adults. While COVID-19 vaccination has been relatively high among the broader Asian American population, lack of disaggregation fails to reveal the low vaccination rates among specific Asian ethnic subgroups and among Asian immigrants, related to low health literacy, limited access, language barriers, religious beliefs, and vaccine hesitancy. Another vaccine preventable disease, hepatitis B, also disproportionally affects foreign-born Asians, with 1 in 12 Asians living with hepatitis B. Chicago's 2015 influenza data shows Black adults had the lowest vaccination rate, at 25.9%, compared to 43.2% of Whites. As observed with current uptake of the COVID-19 vaccination, 51.1% of the Illinois population is fully vaccinated as of mid-August 2021, with only 9.8% of those vaccinated identifying as Black or African American, despite making up 14.1% of the total population. These RIM communities experience barriers to healthcare access with contributing factors to heightened vaccine hesitancy and low uptake rates. To reach and educate these communities, the Asian Health Coalition (AHC) will strategically p artner with local community-based organizations and regional health centers across Illinois to accurately assess, develop, and disseminate culturally and linguistically tailored interventions to improve vaccine confidence and uptake. In collaborative effort with program partners, AHC will organize a series of health fairs that target Black and Asian immigrant communities, providing vaccine education in a context that reduces the burden of social and community specific stigma. Engagement surveys will collect pertinent, disaggregated data on confidence in vaccine products, providers, and policy. AHC will leverage the resources and longstanding relationship with the University of Chicago Medicine – Center for Asian Health Equity to implement the V-PROTECT: Confidence Program as a multi-level partnership strategy that will assess, identify, educate, evaluate, and effectively improve vaccine confidence and uptake in foreign-born Black and Asian communities.