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Background: Primary care physicians (PCPs) of South Asian descent are clustered in large U.S.metropolitan areas and serving a diverse group of patients, including patients of AAPI (AsianAmerican And Pacific Islanders) background. The medical community has learned very littleabout how these physicians are promoting COVID-19 vaccines in their outpatient clinics.Objective: We wanted to investigate South-Asian primary care physicians' (PCP) approachtowards promoting COVID-19 vaccination, their opinion and suggestions to promotevaccination, and to reduce vaccine hesitancy in the primary care setting.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of primary care physicians (PCP) ofSouth-Asian descent in the U.S. We developed a 25-item instrument and the last item was anopen-ended question to capture general comments from physicians. During a 6-week (January –March 2022) enrollment period 101 physicians completed the survey. We conducted a thematicanalysis of all responses from the open-ended question and looked for themes. These themesbroadly reflected the keywords and comments made by the physicians. For instance, “clarifyvaccine misinformation” and “addressing vaccine concerns” were allotted to the theme “vaccineeducation by PCP”. "Vaccine education by Public Health entities" and "increased access tovaccination" were other themes. There were also innovative ideas to promote vaccination. Someexamples of this theme include: "questionnaire on patient's impression of vaccination", "RN/SWaddressing vaccine hesitancy" and "incentives for PCP".Results: Physicians of Bangladeshi origin were the largest group (83%), followed by Indian (8%)and Pakistani descent (4%). Most physicians lived in the North-East region (48%). 93% of ourparticipants were actively involved in promoting COVID-19 vaccination. A significant numberof physicians were familiar with vaccine hesitancy (79%), however, only 64% have beensuccessful at persuading the unvaccinated patients. Interestingly, the leadership team wasdirectly involved in COVID-19 vaccination efforts in only 47% of the health practices. Thepatient education (54%) was a dominant theme. A small subset (6%) of physicians believed thatPublic Health Authorities should be more engaged. 10% suggested increasing access tovaccination at PCP clinics. 6% of responses can be qualified as innovative ideas.Discussion: Our study showed that most PCPs had good understanding of vaccination relatedcare and believed in vaccine advocacy; however, the leadership support was lacking. It did notinclude other large South-Asian subgroups. Findings and insights from comments may warrant alarger study to better understand how South Asian PCPs could be more involved in COVID-19vaccination campaign.

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