Promoting Vaccination: A Toolkit for Collaborating with Faith Communities
2023
Vaccine Promotion Toolkit and Implementation Guide
The vaccine promotion toolkit was developed as a part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership project, which includes an initiative to identify and address concerns among religious leaders and faith-based communities around vaccination. The project completed a global landscape analysis and 18 key informant interviews for engaging faith leaders in vaccination, which was synthesized into step-by-step best practices in the toolkit. The toolkit was reviewed through advisory forums and pre-tested in India and Sierra Leone. It was disseminated to approximately 100 key stakeholders (consisting of 27 Muslim, 12 Hindu, and 16 Christian local leaders) across India, after being translated into Hindi, and Sierra Leone (24 Christian leaders, five Muslim leaders, 13 workers including Ministry of Health staff, and four traditional healers). Over 3,000 people were reached in India and 20,000 in Sierra Leone with in-person messages from the toolkit through various activities that were monitored and documented with monthly progress notes.
After the six-month pilot period, stakeholders provided feedback on the implementation experience in their communities. These findings, along with the evidence from a research review of factors that support the uptake of immunization resources, informed the development of an implementation guide.