This community-engaged research project and intervention aims to strengthen communication ties among local stakeholders—primarily between residents, on one hand, and leadership and staff of local health and other social services, on the other—and generate a blueprint for how to improve the communication infrastructure of an urban community. The study is unfolding in the Municipality of Egaleo, in the metropolitan region of Athens, Greece, in partnership with the city and the Greek National Center of Social Research (EKKE, in Greek).
Combating COVID-19: Investigating Vaccine Hesitancy and Communication Practices Among Healthcare Providers and Patients in Local New Jersey Communities
Even as COVID-19 vaccination rates accelerate in the U.S., minority communities remain under-vaccinated, due to both vaccine hesitancy and barriers to access. This project focuses on the role that healthcare providers play in encouraging vaccination within the communities they serve, by investigating vaccine perceptions and communication practices among healthcare providers and residents in Newark, New Jersey. Whereas most research on vaccination uptake is conducted at the national level, this project addresses the community level, in order to understand local factors that affect vaccine perceptions and access and, in turn, inform strategies to improve provider-patient communication and, ultimately, vaccine equity.