With a 4-year, $2.6 million R01 grant, a research team led by Dr. Marya Gwadz will optimize an intervention to overcome barriers to vaccination.
New York, NY – African American/Black and Latino (AABL) people are less likely than their white peers to be up-to-date on their COVID-19 and flu vaccines and more likely to be hospitalized and die from those preventable infectious diseases. To reduce those disparities, a team led by NYU Silver Professor and Associate Dean for Research Marya Gwadz has been awarded a four-year, $2.6 million R01 research grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. They will use the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) framework to test four behavioral intervention components designed to overcome common barriers to vaccination in AABL communities and identify the most efficient and effective combinations, taking into consideration cost.
“AABL people experience serious impediments to COVID-19 vaccination and, to a lesser extent, influenza vaccination,” said Dr. Gwadz. She cited factors such as medical and institutional distrust at the individual level, norms that discourage vaccination at the social level, and insufficient and inconsistent public health education and vaccine access at the structural level. “Without efforts to address the multi-level reasons for vaccine hesitancy, rates of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination will remain unacceptably low and racial/ethnic health disparities in infectious disease morbidity and mortality will persist.”
Dr. Gwadz’s team, including the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, its community partner, developed the intervention components to address specific barriers, with an emphasis on brevity, simplicity, and future scalability. All participants will receive culturally relevant health education on COVID-19 and flu vaccination. The components that will be tested include a shared decision-making consultation with a nurse, health and wellness text messages, support from a trained peer navigator, and brief follow-up calls.
The study will enroll 560 English and Spanish-speaking AABL adults who live in New York City and have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose but are not up-to-date on their COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations. A subset of 45 study participants will participate in qualitative interviews exploring their experiences with and perspectives on the intervention components and on barriers to and facilitators of vaccination. Being up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccination is the study’s primary outcome, and influenza vaccination is the secondary outcome.
The study team will identify the most cost-effective, easily delivered combination of components that contribute meaningfully to AABL people getting vaccinated for COVID-19 and influenza. The resulting intervention could be implemented annually in community-based health and social service agencies to boost rates of vaccination in communities with the greatest barriers standing in their way.
Co-investigators for the study include Drs. Lalitha Parameswaran, Charles Cleland and Heather Gold from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Dr. Siyu Heng from NYU School of Global Public Health and Rauly Chero from the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation.
About NYU Silver School of Social Work
Founded in 1960 and renowned for a strong tradition of excellence in direct social work practice and dedication to social justice, NYU Silver has provided rigorous training to more than 20,000 social work practitioners and leaders in every area of the field, making it the leading destination for students who want to become innovative practitioners at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels of social work practice. The School has four campuses in the heart of New York City, Rockland County, Westchester County, and Shanghai.