Covid 19: health promotion strategies suited to further global containment of the pandemic

Abstract

To achieve the combination of increased vaccination rates and broad adherence to infection prevention measures required to ultimately control the Covid-19 virus, greater clarity is needed globally about what knowledge, attitudes and behaviors underlie the ongoing resistance to vaccination, and limit public compliance over prevention. Government agencies and public health providers also need better understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses and to find ways to build public trust. Country-specific initiatives are needed to develop the improved campaigns required to achieve the level of innate and vaccine-induced herd immunity required to contain the pandemic. The World Health Organization has called for innovation, and this commentary explores how proven health promotion approaches that consult, involve, inform, collaborate and empower can be applied in innovative ways globally to enable individual countries to progress further towards Covid containment, so that the health burden of the virus will wane.