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The decision by the Food and Drug Administration Friday night to issue an emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is a critical breakthrough in the battle against the disease that has infected more than 15.7 million Americans and killed nearly 300,000.
The FDA ruling that the Pfizer vaccine is safe and effective is just a first step in a massive rollout of the vaccine. Now the enormous task of distributing the vaccine around the nation begins.
But a crucial obstacle to widespread vaccinations will be public hesitancy to take the vaccine, driven by doubts, fears, and misinformation spreading throughout the nation and the world.
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The same challenge will face other vaccines now awaiting approval in the U.S. and vaccines distributed globally. Gaining public acceptance for the Pfizer vaccine and other vaccines is vital, because we won’t end the worst global health crisis in a century until the majority of the world’s 7.7 billion people are vaccinated against COVID-19. The disease has infected more than 70 million people around the world and killed nearly 1.6 million.
Behavioral science will be as important to vaccine acceptance as basic science was to vaccine development. If government and health care leaders take the right approach to educating the public about the vaccines, we can create a pathway for the public to assess options and choose to get vaccinated. Given the accelerated development of the Pfizer vaccine and other vaccines not yet approved, convincing people that the vaccines are safe and effective is critical.
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The World Health Organization identified vaccine hesitancy as a top global health threat in 2019 — just months before the COVID-19 outbreak. An Axios-Ipsos survey found that only half of Americans say they are likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is available. These numbers are even lower among African Americans, at just more than a quarter. Why?
Historically, minority communities have been suspicious of new health technologies and biomedical research due to past unethical experimentation on African Americans and Native Americans.
Given that African Americans are hardest hit by COVID-19, public health officials must respond to these concerns. Beliefs in vaccine conspiracies and rumors that the government is cutting corners in testing and development must also be addressed if we are to achieve herd immunity, the threshold of 70 percent of the population needed in order for person-to-person transmission to be largely eliminated.
As plans are developed to roll out the Pfizer vaccine and later other COVID-19 vaccines throughout the nation, public health officials and other health care leaders should consider three steps.
Transparency to build trust
Leaders at all levels of government and the health care community must be upfront that science is always evolving and that knowledge about the vaccines will continue to accumulate.
Communications should stress that the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine (not yet approved) are 90 to 95% percent effective. It’s also important to emphasize that while the development, testing, and approval processes for vaccines have been accelerated, no steps were skipped.
When people are asked if they’re willing to get a vaccine that is “more than 90% effective” or one that has been “proven safe and effective,” willingness to be vaccinated increases to 65 to 70%.
Transparency also means being upfront about potential side effects of vaccines. These include possible arm soreness (as with most vaccines) and possible fatigue a day or two after vaccination. If people expect knowledge to evolve and believe public health leaders will be upfront, reports of new side effects are less likely to undermine confidence and trust.
Active engagement with vaccine information
Communications about the vaccines should pose questions such as: “How will my family and I benefit from the vaccine?” or “If I don’t get a vaccine and then later get COVID-19, to what extent would I regret that decision?”
Such questions lead people to more actively engage with the information rather than simply being told that the vaccine is safe.
We took this approach when we developed an app and website to address parental hesitancy about the HPV vaccine among diverse populations. We are now working to adapt this approach to provide information on COVID-19 vaccines.
Interactive technology makes it more likely that people will become engaged in the decision to be vaccinated and be motivated to follow through to get the required second dose.
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Meeting different informational needs and styles of decision-making among people
Some people will want detailed information to weigh the scientific evidence before being vaccinated against COVID-19. Others will want information mediated through a trusted source, like health care providers, faith-based leaders and public figures.
To accommodate different needs and maintain transparency, educational materials should provide information in a stepped manner. Basic information from trusted sources is presented first. This is followed by more detailed information using different media such as print, video and formats such as personal stories and graphics to explain numbers and risk.
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Websites and apps that enable people to navigate to their level of desired information provide another level of empowerment. We found our app’s stepped approach led previously hesitant parents to be 2.5 times more likely to decide in favor of the HPV vaccine.
Our major investments in vaccine development and testing will fall short of achieving their potential impact unless the public takes the COVID-19 vaccines. We must work proactively to communicate better than ever before.
Jasmin Tiro, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Population and Data Sciences at UT Southwestern. She has conducted observational and intervention research on the HPV vaccine and leads community outreach, engagement, and equity initiatives for the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center in Dallas.