How UNC Health Got a Jump-Start on Preparing for Vaccine Rollout

Victor Reiss, UNC Health’s vice president of consumerism and insights, marketing and communications

“On December 14, 2020, the first COVID-19 vaccination outside the clinical trials was administered in the U.S. But UNC Health began preparing for the vaccine rollout months earlier,” writes Susan Dubuque, principal and co-founder of NDP.

Here’s an excerpt from Susan’s new article.

“Our consumer insights team conducts monthly Brand Trackers, and in the summer of 2020, we began asking questions about consumers’ likelihood of getting a COVID vaccination,” explains Victor Reiss, UNC Health’s vice president of consumerism and insights, marketing and communications. “This provided us with three to four months of data and gave us a solid baseline of understanding.”

“It quickly became apparent that our consumers fell into one of three categories,” says Reiss. “About 30 percent of the respondents were early adopters or vaccine positive. These individuals raised their hands and expressed a desire to be vaccinated — and the sooner the better. A little more than half of our respondents were unsure or vaccine hesitant, and the balance were vaccine naysayers — that is, people who clearly reject the idea of being vaccinated.”

With an eye on the goals of achieving widespread vaccinations and ultimately herd immunity, the team first set out to uncover what was driving vaccine hesitancy. “We learned that consumers’ feelings about the vaccine were tied to what they were hearing in the media,” says Reiss. “Our community wanted clear and concise information and guidance in sorting through all the conflicting and politically loaded information that they were exposed to on social media.”

The second challenge was to define trusted messengers. Fortunately, UNC Health’s research showed that doctors and the health system were seen as highly credible and trusted sources of information related to the COVID-19 vaccine. In addition to conducting primary consumer research, the UNC team gathered secondary information, including strategies and best practices deployed by health care organizations from around the country.

Read the full story now: A “Super Bowl Moment” for Health Care: How UNC Health Promotes Vaccination

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