Informing Vaccine Messaging and Community Outreach: Experience in Chicago with a Community-Based Participatory Approach.

Purpose: In response to disparities in COVID-19 vaccine uptake in urban environments, we ascertained whether a community-engaged evaluation could rapidly determine why unvaccinated Chicago residents were hesitant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Approach: The assessment used a mixed-methods approach, grounded in community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles.

Setting: Interviews were conducted by community partners between April and May 2022 in Chicago, in-person and via phone.

Participants: A purposive sample of Chicagoans (n = 456), who were: (1) adults (≥18 years); (2) living in priority areas in Chicago heavily impacted by COVID-19; (3) who spoke English or Spanish; and (4) had not received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Method: A transdisciplinary academic-community team co-developed an assessment tool. Members of Chicago's Community Health Response Corps (CHRC) (N = 115) interviewed participants, using a 46-item survey in Qualtrics. Interviews were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative software, including Dedoose for coding and SAS for descriptive statistics.

Results: Over half of all respondents were not concerned about getting COVID-19. Respondents voiced concerns about side effects (36%), vaccine safety (27%), and trust in governmental institutions, given historical events involving unethical research. Participants also reported other social needs (e.g., food or housing insecurity) that made COVID-19 a lower priority.

Conclusion: The collaborative research approach highlighted issues of trust, concerns about side effects and vaccine safety, issues that have informed vaccine messaging.