The importance of cultural tailoring of communicators and media outlets in an Influenza vaccination awareness campaign: A digital randomized trial

Abstract

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of ethnic minorities, secondary to lower vaccination rates, higher prevalence of underlying disease and restricted access to care. We investigated the effect of cultural tailoring of communicators and media outlets, respectively, in an influenza vaccination campaign in the Netherlands. A total of 1226 participants were recruited from 2 culturally non-tailored media outlets (Dutch newspaper and Facebook), and 1 media outlet tailored to a large community in the Netherlands with Indian ancestry. The participants from all 3 media outlets were randomly exposed to a vaccination awareness video delivered by a physician with an Indian or Dutch background, followed by an online survey. Cultural tailoring compared to cultural non-tailoring of communicators showed no difference in improvement of vaccine willingness (13.9% vs. 20.7% increment, respectively, p = 0.083). However, the media outlet tailored to the Indian community, resulted in a higher improvement of vaccine willingness compared to non-tailored media outlets (46.7% vs. 14.7% increment, respectively, p < 0.001, unadjusted OR = 5.096). These results suggest that cultural tailoring of media outlets may be critical to effectively reach out to ethnic minorities to help optimize vaccination rates and improve general health.