# Community Engagement Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE · 2020 · $199,526

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Health literacy is a significant barrier for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine acceptance, particularly among low-
income and minority communities that have experienced disproportionately high rates of COVID-19 infection
and mortality. Previous research has identified the importance of trust for health literacy. This is especially
true for minority communities that have experienced systemic discrimination within the US healthcare system
and harbor longstanding mistrust of physicians. Vaccine acceptance relies on public trust not only in individual
providers, but also in public health officials and the health care system as a whole. Public health experts agree
that the US lacks vaccine readiness and that interventions are needed to effectively overcome substantial
vaccine hesitancy. Yet tens of millions of U.S. adults are unable to make decisions in their own best interest
because they neither can access, nor understand, health information.
 This project uses a social ecological framework to investigate how low-income Latinx/Hispanics and
African Americans in Southern California's Inland Empire engage with health information about COVID-19
and the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Understanding how information works as a system, rather than as a problem
of physician-patient communication, facilitates identification of high-leverage points for communication
interventions to increase vaccine acceptance among vulnerable populations.
 Research questions: What are the health information-seeking patterns of low-income and minority
patients? And what can be learned from these patterns to design effective communication interventions to
mitigate misinformation and overcome vaccine hesitancy?
 Aim 1: Investigate current information needs, knowledge, and concerns regarding COVID-19
and a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Focus groups and a Community Advisory Board will inform the design of an
online survey to assess low-income African Americans' and Latinx/Hispanics' knowledge, beliefs,
expectations, concerns, and fears regarding COVID-19 and a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Follow-up phone
interviews will be conducted with a subset of survey respondents to probe more deeply into the processes
through which individuals seek and obtain health information.
 Aim 2: Develop communication interventions to increase vaccine acceptance. Qualitative and
quantitative analyses from Aim 1 will be integrated to categorize information-seeking patterns and identify
relationships of trust in low-income minority communities. Communication strategies will then be designed to
acknowledge both information barriers and existing social capital that can be harnessed in low-income and
minority communities to increase vaccine acceptance.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10267408
- **Project number:** 3U54MD013368-02S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
- **Principal Investigator:** Juliet McMullin
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $199,526
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-08-08 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10267408

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10267408, Community Engagement Core (3U54MD013368-02S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10267408. Licensed CC0.

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