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Transforming Covid Vaccine Hesitancy to Confidence through Conversations that Change
Glococoln.org is a project overview site.
We are grateful to many professional colleagues who contributed knowledge and perspective in developing these ideas.
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Welcome to the Global
COVID Conversation
Learning Network
Covid vaccines are rolling out in many countries. It is not known what percentage of a population needs to be vaccinated in order to stop the spread of the virus, but it is estimated to be 60-80%.
Unfortunately, over 25% of potential recipients have expressed vaccine hesitancy in getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Vaccine hesitancy reflects a spectrum of concerns but often stems from a lack of trust in the vaccines, health systems and national governments. The highest rates of vaccine hesitancy are often seen in the most disadvantaged and marginalized communities - who are also some of the communities most severely impacted by COVID-19 and in the greatest need of the vaccine.
Because of the trust deficit, national vaccine messaging and information campaigns are not typically effective in persuading vaccine hesitant individuals. Many of their concerns are amplified by mis-and dis-information spreading through social media and by word of mouth and can not be effectively countered with standard social media campaigns.
Research into vaccine hesitancy has shown clearly that 'being heard' is a crucial step for building trust in vaccines. Conversations with trusted experts can allow for vaccine hesitant individuals to express their concerns and receive trusted information that will enable them to make informed and confident decisions about vaccination.
We propose the facilitation of a scalable number of properly-informed, trusted conversations, changing vaccine hesitancy into confidence on a global scale.
This initiative was a product of the COVID epidemic. Dana Eyre and I brought together five other experts in public communication and epidemiology to apply our methods on a pro bono basis. We worked intensively and successfully with a division of Veterans Affairs in the US and participated in other networks looking to overcome vaccine hesitancy.
Of course the context - from mis and dis-information, conspiracy theory, politicisation - inhibited most rational effort.
On the link, if you are interested, is one of our presentations.
Please get in touch if you would like to learn more or discuss experiences.
Mark Linder
The Global COVID Conversation Learning Network propose a "white-label" Platform for Building Trust (PBT) that enables communities to create and scale a trust conversation chain, enabling vaccine hesitant communities to have conversations about COVID vaccines in safe and trusted online environments. www.glococonln.org
Purpose
Purpose
Our purpose is to help people transform Hesitancy into Confidence.
The PBT allows community-based organizations (religious, social support and many other community organizations) around the world to create their own environments in which to find local Experts and host trusted conversations about vaccines in their community.
Experts can be any independent practitioner qualified to discuss vaccines - and most importantly, interested in participating in group or individual conversations.
The important thing is that a Convenor matches to an expert around attributes that are necessary for trust in that particular community.
By allowing this process to take place at the local level, Experts will represent diverse ethnic, racial, national and vocational community groups around the world and will be paired with representative local community-based organizations.
Why needed
Why a conversational approach?
To change their minds, those who are hesitant about a vaccine need to feel engaged in a process they trust, credible explanations that address their concerns, and clear expectations for outcomes.
This takes work, emotional work, in a trusted, conversational space.
It’s not enough to rely on the conversation setting inside clinical space because not everyone will agree to come.
Conversations about Hesitancy in wider society will help people become confident enough to come to clinical environments.
No matter how persuasive influentials are, campaigns ask for compliance. Implying there is no place for doubt is a turnoff for many Hesitants. Conversations between people who trust one another are necessary to open up the possibility of change.
The challenge is “matchmaking” and facilitation for trusted exchanges - at scale. That's why a platform is needed.
Is and is not
What this platform is and is not
This project is about creating a simple platform that can be used in any culture to provide expert-vetted information and to match local trusted Convenors with vetted and trained Experts.
Initially, it will be a small number of countries that step forward to pioneer this effort. Beyond solving for themselves, the idea is to create a "white label" platform that can be the basis of a solution for many.
Tens of millions of these early conversations are necessary to build confidence.
We are about building confidence with the goal of improving health outcomes for communities around the world.
This is a not-for-profit enterprise. A group of volunteers in three countries have created this project. We don't have a fixed idea of how it will be created or funded. However we know this platform has to build and maintain trust, conform to information privacy regulations, and be free at the point of use for participants.
How it works
How we work
We are confident others are thinking the same way. We want to connect up. And by the way, though we have ideas it's not "our show". We are happy to join others.
With the national partners who believe in this initiative, our plan is to form a coalition with enlightened developers to build an initial solution that can be the basis for the platform.
How do we build a demo in a couple of weeks that gets this started? How can we establish a process to build succeeding versions without disrupting people who are already participating? Perhaps you can help.
There are other problems to be solved: How this initiative gets funded, which Experts "seed" the platform for the initial solution, how we manage many questions we haven't even thought of.
This is going to take a Hackathon-type approach to get started.
The users of this platform are local, worldwide. We cannot have one system that works for all situations. The problem has to be explored on a multi-local basis, collaboratively.
Local partners (at the country level) establish their own instance of this platform, branded as they see fit, using language they see fit.
The underlying mechanisms are provided to all users.
Governance
Governance
This resource is by and for societies at large. It exists as a resource for the Commons.
All development must conform to GDPR and applicable practices of the open source movement.
Like any resource there has to be a core team that manages policy, resolves conflict. We will work with any convening partner who can insure the right environment for rapid prototyping.
We need to work tigether to develop a Quality Assurance and governance system that is respectful, cognizant of privacy, agile, and efficient.
We will have a operating board that is responsible for the overall architecture and the resources required to maintain this resource.
The curation of the content is in the hands of the local partners who establish an in-country version of the site, the local Experts, and the contributions of vaccine hesitant individuals themselves.
Sponsors may also contribute to the resource and their contributions will be so noted.
Getting started
Contact us
Most important to us is hearing from others who want to join this initiative.
So please get in touch. Take a look at a recent presentation. We will listen to your views and needs, walk you through our overall proposal. Ideally we'll roll up sleeves together.
Founders
Founders
Jeremy Rossman, PhD
Sara Citrenbaum
© 2021 GlococonLN
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