Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Although vaccination is a cost-effective public health measure, childhood vaccination rates remain sub-optimal in many parts of the world. A diverse range of communication interventions have been utilised with parents and communities to improve vaccination rates. Despite the importance of communication as a component of vaccination programmes, there is no comprehensive approach to organising, and therefore understanding, communication interventions related to vaccination. Developing a classification system, organised into categories based on conceptual or practical similarities (a taxonomy) will help to: understand the relationships between different types of communication interventions; facilitate conceptual mapping of these interventions; clarify the key purposes and features of interventions; and identify evidence gaps.
Objectives: To describe the development and key categories of the ‘Communicate to vaccinate’ taxonomy.
Methods: The taxonomy was developed in two stages: (1) We searched CENTRAL, Medline and the grey literature for relevant communication interventions and extracted data on their features, including the population/s targeted, communication intervention features, and outcomes assessed; (2) Building on existing taxonomies, we grouped interventions conceptually according to their purpose. An initial version of the taxonomy was then presented to a series of stakeholder forums, and refined based on their feedback.
Results: Seven main categories of interventions were identified: inform or educate, remind or recall, teach skills, provide support, facilitate decision making, enable communication, and enhance community ownership. These categories were then broken down into 43 intervention types across three targets: parents or soon-to-be-parents; communities, community members or volunteers; and health professionals.
Conclusion: We have developed a taxonomy to organise the range of ‘Communicate to vaccinate’ interventions currently in practice globally. This taxonomy enables evidence to be mapped; research gaps to be identified; and provides a language and structure so that knowledge resources can be universally understood and used to promote improvements in vaccination uptake and health outcomes.
Objectives: To describe the development and key categories of the ‘Communicate to vaccinate’ taxonomy.
Methods: The taxonomy was developed in two stages: (1) We searched CENTRAL, Medline and the grey literature for relevant communication interventions and extracted data on their features, including the population/s targeted, communication intervention features, and outcomes assessed; (2) Building on existing taxonomies, we grouped interventions conceptually according to their purpose. An initial version of the taxonomy was then presented to a series of stakeholder forums, and refined based on their feedback.
Results: Seven main categories of interventions were identified: inform or educate, remind or recall, teach skills, provide support, facilitate decision making, enable communication, and enhance community ownership. These categories were then broken down into 43 intervention types across three targets: parents or soon-to-be-parents; communities, community members or volunteers; and health professionals.
Conclusion: We have developed a taxonomy to organise the range of ‘Communicate to vaccinate’ interventions currently in practice globally. This taxonomy enables evidence to be mapped; research gaps to be identified; and provides a language and structure so that knowledge resources can be universally understood and used to promote improvements in vaccination uptake and health outcomes.