COVID-19 (2022 Deadline)
YouthCAN - Co-design African Needs: Exploring strategies to increase the uptake of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in youth: a co-designed study with youth
PI: Janan Dietrich (dietrichj@phru.co.za), Perinatal HIV Research Unit, Division of the University of the Witwatersrand
U.S. Partner: Avy Violari, Perinatal HIV Research Unit, Division of the University of the Witwatersrand (funded by National Institutes of Health)
Project Dates: September 15, 2022 - December 31, 2023
Project Overview:
 | | USAID (Brent Wells, Melissa Trimble Bressner) and NAS (Lina Stankute Alexander) visit Dr. Dietrich's team at PHRU, South Africa, May 2023 |
Less than 30 % of the South African population has received a COVID-19 vaccine and as of 22 February 2022, and just under 1.3 million South African children aged 12-17 years had been vaccinated. Although much work has been conducted to understand vaccine hesitancy and misconceptions among South African adults, the youth voice has largely been neglected. As is similar across Africa, the South African population consists largely of young people. Prompted by conversations with young people, this project entails three linked objectives, informed by continuous consultation a with a youth-led community advisory board endorsing its relevance and bringing focus to the scientific approach. The immediate aim is to better understand how information about COVID-19 is accessed and spread in the response to circumvent vaccine hesitancy in young people. The final output will be an intervention co-designed with youth to support the local government community initiatives to increase the uptake of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.
This study addresses three linked objectives, which are listed below along with the planned activities:
1.To understand and explore ways to increase the uptake of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in young people
Activities: Formative rapid community assessments including Group Discussions and an online survey (months 3-5)
2.To explore vaccine hesitancy by determining exposure to community rumors, social media “news,” other sources of information or misinformation, and the impact of this information on behavioral responses to COVID-19 and vaccine confidence
Activities: Data analysis (months 5-6)
3. To co-design an intervention to maximize SARS-CoV-2 vaccine uptake and address vaccine hesitancy in youth in sub-Saharan Africa
Activities: Youth-led workshops (months 6-8)
This project is jointly supported by the South Africa Department of Science and Innovation.
Project updates
During April-June 2023 reporting period, the PEER team conducted community outreach and eight focus groups were convened within two sites in Soweto. Focus groups were stratified by gender, age (15-24) and site (Diepkloof, Motsoaledi). The first site is an urban area called Diepkloof where female and male participants were recruited to partake in eight focus groups in total. Four were convened in each site. In the second site, an informal settlement area called Motsoaledi, participants were recruited for the remaining four focus groups for the same ages and included both males and females. The focus groups where further stratified by ages 15-19 and 20-24 and male and female groups. During the focus group convening sessions the team explored young people’s thoughts, experiences and perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccine. They also explored participant’s thoughts on youth inclusivity as well as campaigns and strategies they thought would work to get youth involved in decisions and conversations about important procedures should a future pandemic occur again. Community leaders within both sites were interviewed individually to gain and understanding of their experiences on the ground about the pandemic as well as communities views on the COVD-19 vaccine. We also further explored from their experiences the interventions they thought would work to get the youth involved should another pandemic occur. The project team contacted secondary and primary stakeholders via email to inform them about the project and the aim of their involvement using the results of the research. The emails were intended to promote communication and engagement with stakeholders to create awareness on the research project. During this period in the month of May the team also hosted USAID and NAS representatives to showcase their project progress and preliminary results. Outreach attempts to a local NGO based in Motsoaledi; Iksasalethu Youth Programme have been made on multiple occasions as well.
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