Addressing Missed Opportunities for Vaccination among Children in Hospitals: Leveraging the P-Process for Health Communication Strategies

Abstract

Addressing missed opportunities for vaccination requires a nuanced and context-specific approach. The five-step P-Process provides a robust framework to develop a clearly defined strategy that addresses social and behavioral drivers, integrates into existing health delivery systems, and facilitates collaboration with local experts. This approach allows teams to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate strategies to address public health issues. However, its specific application in vaccination communication programs remains relatively underexplored and under-documented. Our team designed a multi-pronged communication intervention aimed at enhancing vaccine uptake among hospitalized children in two tertiary hospitals in India and Nigeria. In the Inquiry stage, we conducted in-depth interviews with caregivers of hospitalized children to assess barriers to vaccination in a hospital setting. In the Strategic Development stage, we developed a blueprint for activities, identifying target audiences and communication channels and developing implementation plans. During the Create and Test stage, we brought together a range of stakeholders to co-develop a communication intervention through human-centered design workshops, after which we piloted the materials in both hospitals. We then Mobilized and Monitored progress of the activities to identify potential gaps that our materials did not initially address. Lastly, in the Evaluate and Evolve stage, we conducted in-depth interviews with healthcare workers and caregivers to measure outcomes and assess the impact on caregivers’ decisions to vaccinate their hospitalized children. By following the P-Process for the design, caregivers reported that many of their concerns about vaccines were alleviated, and HCWs reported that they were able to communicate with caregivers more effectively about vaccination. By harnessing the power of the P-Process, researchers can forge a context-specific path towards impactful vaccination communication interventions, one step at a time.